The Penetralia

The Penetralia is the Temple of Source Teachings Society.

A highly conditioned node where it is possible to make relationship with

Trainees, chosen on the basis of their readiness, and after careful preparation by MBM, are offered the privilege of participating in the meetings there.

Its high condition, the key in which MBM, as Wisdom Teacher, speaks, together with their own preparation, lifts the consciousness of the participant to new emotional and mental awareness.

Many experiences of Extended Consciousness are recorded as having taken place in the Penetralia.

Most of us have short range plans.  That is, one experience in earth at a time.  There are others whose lives have been planned long ahead.  The figure of Jesus and the prophecies in the Old Testament.  There are a few who have accepted long time roles of responsibility, and all the ardors that come with it.  Most folk accept one role at a time.

But if there is the long range anticipation, the carrying out of a project, that is not to be measured in terms of freedom or happiness, in the usual sense; for he who looks for happiness won’t find it.  Happiness is a by-product.  We are happiest when we are doing those things for which we came down.

The pattern of Jesus had to have space – generation upon generation – to make it in full the anticipation of the allegory.  Prophecies.  Such a figure as this was a long range planning, to set out a terrifically noble and extensive allegory.  That pattern required much tragedy, no happiness in the usual sense of the word, and the struggle to keep in tune with prophecy.  Remember, there was outlined a long range view of fate.  That is not so for everyone, but only for the few.  It brought with crucifixion.

 

 

SILENCE

Concerning the Penetralia…..

Each trainee, who has already been inducted into the Penetralia, may enter this Room at his own time, and on his own volition.

He will know for what he enters the Room, – be it for soul’s refreshment, to re-attune the self, to breathe deeply of peace and timelessness, to ponder on the mysteries of the Great Truths, to pour out longing and love, to seek for enlightenment, to lift up heart and mind in devotion and in thanksgiving….    ……

Each trainee will have learned how to bring his body and psyche to silence, and he shall understand that he has a share in sustaining the condition in the Penetralia.  And always, whatever else he does therein, he shall offer a prayer of wonder and thanksgiving to the Light and give It his homage.

The period of his abiding within the Room may be brief or long, according to his choice.  Above his choice will be poised his understanding and rightness………

For those who are not residents at Pojodag House, the most favorable time to enter the Penetralia is just before the trainee leaves the House.  He can then reduce his conversation to a minimum and not let externals too quickly ravish the ………… of the silence in the Penetralia.  There are, however, circumstances which warrant immediate entry into the Room, – and these should be heeded.

A trainee who is continuously cultivating his sensitivities, will know which choices to make under varying circumstances

And finally, every trainee will remember that this Room could not be without the fellowship of the Group Life, and that the Group-soul is necessary to sustain this Node in earth.  Therefore bless the Group Life, and in the Penetralia seek how you can become an ever-Life-more-abundant integer of it.  Discover what this will do for you in the Group and how the Power in the Penetralia will unfold.

And in silence to Earth and Water

             and in liberation of Fire in Air

                       quest for GOODNESS.

                              In IT is the LIGHT………

                                   the INEFFABLE OF THE HEAVENS.

                                              MBM

 

On the four arks in the pattern of the Hebraic people, (from the introduction) laws and principles are emanations from the Light.

I will speak of the pattern of the Hebraic people again tonight, for several reasons.  Last time of the Jewish tradition and then of other traditions that throw light.  I will speak of 4 arks.  Or you may think of subtle bodies or of the Trinity.  I will leave it to you.  The first is not called an ark, the second and third are called arks, and the fourth again is not.  They go over many ages — how long we will see in the Friday class.

I spoke last time of the gifts that were given to Adam and Eve as they left the Garden of Eden.  Eden means enclosure, division, therefore something in which treasure is kept. These gifts were the germs of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; that is incipient humanity had the seeds of these three.  Tiny, like mustard seeds.

The second ark is that of Noah.  I won’t go into the construction of it, except to remind you that it was of a sacred wood, gopher, just as in the Egyptian acacia was sacred. Also it had three levels, and a window near the top.  Into it went Noah and his wife, who is barely mentioned, because the soul side of men was undeveloped at this time; and his sons and their wives.  The three levels — again the emphasis of the three-fold man; and we have it again in the three sons or powers which went in the three directions out from the center of the ark.

The window is that out of which man looks out into the heavens.  The sons are: Shem, the thinking faculty which, in its ultimate state is willed – of the same quality, but not of the same stature as the will of Deity; Ham, doing activity, leading to right action; and Japheth, right desire, leading the wisdom.  It is said in the secret tradition that the body of Adam was taken in the Ark, not the literal body but the values given Adam.

The next ark is that of Moses.  Again, I will not go into the construction, except to say its dimensions were much smaller than those of Noah, and that its covering did not rest upon it but floated above it.  Man now open to ideas.  No longer has the large ark around him, but now the smaller ark to go before him as ideas do.  Man’s ability to understand symbols.

In the ark are three things — symbols: the tables of stone, the serpent of brass, and the pot of manna.  The tables are the Law, the Will of Deity, not ultimate, but at that stage.  The serpent of brass represents the power of Deity — the serpent with his head above, the symbol of God to man.  The pot of manna represents wisdom.  These symbols go before man in the journey through the Wilderness.

The ideas now are not of earth, nor resident in earthly objects, but reside in symbols — always the carriers of ideas that endure.

The last ark is the Cross.  I have not referred to.the crossbeaming of the ark.  This is the minimum ark in earth, – the minimum life in earth.  Connected with it are “the bones that shall not be broken.”  In Job there is a similar mention: “his bones showed” — whether through illness, or weariness, or both.  His friends said he must have broken some law, but he showed his bones as the pattern of his life, – the minimum to earth.  Jesus, too, was never a fat man.

The three is emphasized with the other two crosses, of which I have spoken elsewhere.

In the Gnostic Cross we have the mention of the crossbeaming.  This is the Tree of Life, living on the Tree of Life, of which Adam and Eve, incipient humanity, might not even eat the fruit.  And it can’t be eaten, gnostically, until the three gifts have been developed.

You may see them as the Trinity: whether Will, Wisdom and Activity, or Father, Son and Holy Ghost; or, in relationship, as father, mother, son.  It is all the same — or three aspects of the same.  These must be developed in you before you can know the Trinity gnostically.

You can see it best perhaps through Plato and his “Ideas.”  Those “Ideas” are those things which go before man, and to which he approaches, – whose reality is abstracted from the life of earth.

If you minimize the life in earth you live it more powerfully.

(part of closing)

May these symbols go before you in the Wilderness.

 

 

Two-ness

MBM.  February 25, 1934

 

I am speaking not of that which is according to the cycle of the year but according to the cycle of your own development.  For some of you have been experiencing two-ness, and have been deeply moved; and I would have the rest of you also moved.  Not one and one-ness — that belongs to earth.  That is the movement between the opposites, – from one to the other, according to which seems the better.  The desire is toward the better.

How to come to two-ness?  You may have been told it is through lack of desire.  But if you cease desire you cease action.  It is rather through a minimum of desire, – casualness, – even in these times of difficulty in earth.  The earth-water in you may suffer; that is inevitable.

There are many illustrations of two-ness.  The sun, the symbol of spirit moves between the two pillars of Hercules, the north and the south.  Is master of the equinoxes — the way of mastery.  Moves from east to west, but also between two pillars.  They are seen, by those who read it mystically, as strength, support and sustaining.  They are localized in the third dimension by the two pillars of the Temple.

The Two Horizons.  The two mothers, Isis and Nephthys; or wives, or sisters, according to the needs of the allegory.  Spirit mother and soul mother.

The two baptisms, – that open doors.  The first, at the winter solstice, the second at the spring equinox.  Followed by the two pools.  Sometimes seen as natron and salt, sometimes as water and fire.  It means you must not only be baptized in the two worlds but be immersed in them.

In the Hebraic race it is John and Jesus: the two witnesses — one of the earth and the other, of the spirit, – spirit dominating.  There it is said: the earth must be made small.  That was because the race had become attached to the things of earth.

The same story is told with Nephthys and Isis; but there it was not so necessary to emphasize, for the people enjoyed the things of earth — whatever was in their reach — lightly.  Anubis and Thoth mean almost the same as John and Jesus, – Thoth, the Logos, the Great Mind, the Pattern.

The two earths: That is strange.  Means the two places, or conditions.

The two serpents — the two paths of energy.

Two rivers.  Two crowns.  The red and the white lands — the northern and southern country (of Egypt).

The two serpents that accompany the sun, and that grow.

The two mountains.  For those who have reached those heights, and can see below, with the eyes at the top of the mountain, which later becomes the two flames.  There is no earth language for it.  The fullness of living, – of consciousness, in those conditions.

So, learning to live in the two worlds, – wearing the garments of this one lightly.  Fight, both bitterly and with a smile.  If you do one or the other you are lost.  Work without concern for the result.  You will work better, and without tension.  Have the courage, power, determination.  Think what it would be if you looked back from other planes and had not had the courage.  The opposites of this world, – riches, poverty, – are a trap, a delusion, set there to fool you.  To hold the two is not so far off as you may think.

Do not be afraid.  Stretch out your arms, to the two mothers.  In his deeps, man strives so high.

(Insert earlier)

From the Book of Enoch: The Ancient of Days, who had before Him, the Book of Living; and around Him were the powers of Heaven.

     The “living” are those who accomplish the two-ness; and they have won the powers.

     The great symbol of the two feathers — the double Feather: a power over the two worlds — mastery.

 

 

 

The Three Wise Men; stable, manger, cave;

The Three Gifts, also in secret tradition

re Adam and Eve.

 

MBM   December 24, 1933

 

It is just two days since we have celebrated an evening, like this but unlike.  That was a beat in earth time, more impersonal.  This (evening) is concerning man and each of us.  All great leaders have been born with this beat, though perhaps not their bodies.

We return to some of our earlier material — the three Wise Men or Magi, or Kings, — identical, though different in earth speech.  They came from the East, the land of new light, to the West where it is enfleshed.  The drama of him whose work it was to write the last chapter in the evolution of man.  It is briefly spoken of in Christianity but the content is so great it is almost endless.

Let us go to the stable, or manger, that stable-cave in which is born spirit.  It is compelling, whether we see it as parents, in the helplessness of the babe’s body, or as the bewildered shepherds waiting outside, or as the Wise Men.

The three gifts they brought – myrrh, frankincense, and gold — each bringing one and taking his part in the picture.  They came from distant places in Asia, did not communicate with those in Palestine, and did not know the family to which they came.  Yet they came, in act(?).  How stupendous is the significance!

They saw the star, the earthly sign because seen with earthly eyes.  But they knew the allegory.  They were more than star wise.

In the allegory of Adam and Eve as they went out of the garden, the secret tradition says, they were given myrrh, frankincense and gold, as tokens of the garden.  These were dipped in the waters of the Tree of Life.  These were seeds in the soul, of high potentiality, like the mustard seed, that were to be grown to full stature.  The Wise Men brought these gifts because this Being was of full stature.

Myrrh was used as an internal cleansing agent — beside other values; it was bitter.  A symbol of that which is cleansed of earth or in earth, not a purgation.  A symbol of purity.

Frankincense, that aromatic resin which is still the basis of modern incense – the symbol of that which goes up in man — which turns to the Laws, not of morees but of the great patterns which the great Artificers have made.

Gold, the metal which does not tarnish.

The Church Fathers called these three by various names: truth, spiritual truth, ….purity, standing for morals, ethics.

Gold, as the sign that Jesus would not fall to the temptations in the Wilderness, that he was trued to the great Laws……concerning the beauty of gold.

What did the Magi do next?  They fell down and worshipped.  That is what the wise do.  If men were wise enough, there is not one that would not do this.

But their stolidity of heart and ignorance of mind prevent it.  You are becoming wise, though not as wise as these three.  You are learning true praise-giving.  The quest that man is eternally reaching for.

They went to the city of Bethlehem, the city of David, where spirit born in earth grows to manhood.

(Closing)  So we turn to that Pattern with the body, the heart, and the mind in us.

 

 

On the Great Light and other lights;

Wisdom; Love; insight, understanding;

what is a law;  re destruction

 

MBM   November 26, 1933

 

In the name of the Great Light, let all light be hallowed.  Through the months and years you have heard this.  Now let us see if we can understand more of its nature.

There have been times when we have wondered at the destruction and the pain that seemed to be on the path of the Light; at other times have felt its beneficence.

Even with the physical light, in earth, have you ever felt how much destruction there has been before we achieved our modern light?  Yet it is beneficent, healing.  How much destruction to industry, and humans.  Yet we forget that, and it is right that we should.  But we should be able to recall it, through the great principle of correspondence, when we need it to help us understand pain and destruction that may come in the search of other lights.

The Great Light is something far beyond our power of even dreaming we can understand.  The Unknown, Unspeakable Name, the Father of All Lights.  But there are radiations, and we can know something of these as we contact them lower down; and it is beneficent even to be within the fringe of these.  The great attributes, Love and Wisdom, – like great streamlines out from the Throne.

Love, – that great visible-invisible force, – so mighty that it holds our universe, and all the universes, in their relationship.  Those who understand these things say that Love seeks nothing for itself, but only gives.  In the great Realms there is first Light, then Fire, then heat.  With man, it is in the reverse order.

Another great streamline — Wisdom.  We use the word all too lightly in earth: the great power that interpenetrates with the Great Light.

The Light of which we are speaking is not physical light.  That word is only a symbol.  We have a small likeness to it in earth in knowledge and understanding, – two steps toward it.  Multiply knowledge by the figure one and an infinity of noughts, and you will have something of the Great Light and its power.

The organization of facts about a thing, constituting knowledge, is beneficent.  And yet, applied in earth ways, it is for purposes that ultimately wither, – dry up.  Knowledge should be used for the purposes of the Great Light.  Then it would be hallowed, – truly healing.

One of the other lights is the Blue Light — related to the Great Light; symbolizing the great Cup that men seek, – have sought, and will seek — baptism in the Cup of the Light of the Mind — that Graal

There is also the ruby light of the wine.

The Great Light is sometimes called the Burning Focus.  The Blue Light also a focus, and those who serve it make the music — far greater than any earthly music, and do the dancing that simplifies its laws; serve its laws.

There is insight and understanding.  Knowledge transformed into understanding.  And insight, beginning into the deeper profundities.

There is the Tree of Light, which is the tree of knowledge transformed into understanding and insight.  And then into Gnosis, preliminary to the Great Gnosis.

A law is a word spoken by the Light.

Re destruction via the Light: In our littleness we do not understand that destruction is necessary and wholesome.  It is because the Light will tolerate nothing less than itself.  Do you think Francis was dismayed over the destruction of his old life, – or that there was something of joy in it?

(At close)  We thank Thee for the experiences of the summer…..

 

 

 

Part of the Ascent; Vineyard of the Lord; testings;

fiery chariot; initiation; the “grapes of wrath”;

fiery furnace; joy; halls of initiation; chamber of birth;

danger on the mountain; prayer re grapes.

MBM   May 14, 1933

 

(Part of the Ascent: Let us once more wind our way up the mountain toward the eternal pattern of stature, free for an hour from the signals of earth.  And, as we ascend, we come to the two pillars which challenge us. …  We must be obedient to the law of light in us, whose will is that we obey the Light.  We take off our garments and make the soul naked as we cross the threshold and come into the true regions of the Light.  We come again as suppliants, and give swift gesture with our hands to our heads.  Then, slowly, we walk backwards toward the gate and put on the garments that we would wear, – of true kindness, of courage, of valor, of silence when we should be silent, and sweetness of speech when we should speak; and in deed and action….And then must we see to it that we wear shoes that do not belie our garments.)

There is the season which is for sowing, and the harvest which is for plucking.  These two are the great rhythm of all life; and if you know its laws you can ride securely from wave to wave on the journey to eternity.  Season means sowing.  It is for labor, and then the drums of God beat and the harvest is begun, and the songs of the harvest are sung.  The grapes are tread in the vineyard of the Lord.  The work in the season is preliminary to the treading of the grapes, and that is preliminary to the making of the wine and its drinking.

I have often wondered what you thought was the vineyard of the Lord and the treading of the grapes.  There are grapes of wrath too, when testings are made.  For this is all before another great octave.

All those who are moving toward spirit are tested as they go up the mountain.  The testing comes not as in earth, when you may prepare for it, but unaware, – without a label, – these first tests.  For they are not to be met by preparation but by stature.  And you should bless them, for they make spirit secure, – cast out that which is of earth.(?)

In the secret teachings it is said that Jesus, after the Resurrection, came back, and taught his disciples for eleven years.  It does not mean eleven years in time, but in the condition of eleven, related to the great octave.  Then came what is known in the Christian churches as the Ascension; and the period between is the pause before the next great octave begins.  And only then is the Mountain, which is the mountain of earth, completely left behind – the human evolution.

A great radiance enveloped him, which was not of earth.  It is known as the fiery chariot.  A few others in the Jewish tradition had been carried off in this.vesture, – Enoch and Elijah, symbolizing humanity which had completed the human evolution.

Initiation is something quite different from what you think it is.  As Philo put it: those who come to it their name is East; that is, their nature is of the Land of Birth.

Everyone must meet the tests alone; yet they come through together to the joy of companionship of the mind — a strange pair of opposites.

In the secret tradition it is said that God has His fire in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem.  The fire is of spirit, and it never comes down.  Spirit never really manifests in earth, in its own nature.  The furnace is not in the physical city of Jerusalem, but in a state, and all who are going toward Spirit must go through it, – whether it be in China, or Syria, or anywhere else.  It is the testing at the harvest time — the grapes of wrath, where that which is of dross is consumed; but that which is not is not harmed: “Not a hair of its head shall be harmed.”  Various figures in the Old Testament who have gone into the fiery furnace. (or, who go into the fiery furnace.)

I wish I could help you, – and yet I would not, in going through the furnace; but here each must go alone.  Sometime you will understand the reason for it more from the occult side.  If I did not know the laws I could not bear to see you in that furnace.  But I know of the great things ahead for those who come through.

Here at Pojodag we have had a rich vintage this year, – much to be thankful for.  Those who go through these tests, as did Jesus, who not only went through them but made the pattern for doing so, often see only the dark side; but that is because they see with the earth eye.  From the other side it looks very different.

Those who get off the mountain come to joy.  They are as the gods.  The Jews had a word for this: laughter of the gods.  That is the meaning of the name Isaac – that fullness of life, in which there is Light, abundance of wellbeing, that manifests itself in joy and laughter.

Here at Pojodag you have all gathered grapes, but some have thrown their grapes upon the carts of those outside the hostel, and they have been taken away.  And when the Lord asks for those grapes, where will they be?  But those who have remained within the hostel will be transformed into the wine by those alchemical processes that can take place only within the hostel.

That process (or treading of the grapes) and the drinking of the wine leads to one of the chambers in the halls of initiation.  There are many chambers in them: the hall of birth; of love; of the Golden Light.  This drinking leads to the chamber of birth; but it is only for those who can endure the testing and carry on the direction in which they are going, even if the curtains fall.  And in that chamber is such joy, Light without shadow, that you will wonder how you could have been concerned, how you could have treated shadows as other than shadows.

(Insert somewhere above)

Back to the Jesus motif.  After his Ascension Jesus sat at the right side of God.  I will lift one veil from that mystery.  “At the right side” means sharing the power in the Cosmic.  Seated, means the place of security – has nothing to do with the earthly meaning of these words.

(Prayer at the closing.)

May the fermentation of the grapes throw off all fear that gnaws at the very life blood . . . . May we all gather the grapes and sing the song of the harvest, the hymn of joy; especially the grapes of the heart and of the mind that we have gathered. . . . May we be anointed with the wine, to carry us through the coming months.  Get your feet ready for the treading of the grapes.

(insert above)

About the danger on the mountain: There is always danger of falling down to the place you left, whether only a little while ago or far back.

About drum beats: We at Pojodag have heard strange drum beats as we near the harvest.

We are thankful that these things have been set up solidly in earth, for our practice.

 

 

The Crucifixion, Last Supper, Cross of Light

MBM   April 14, 1933

 

The Crucifixion.  We have been following the Pattern of Jesus these last Sundays.  But in all the many years now that we have done this we have only begun to get what there is in that Pattern.

     We hear the rolling of the drums, – not literal drums, but in the ethers, and we keep watch again as the great drama unfolds, – the drama which has been recorded.

     I choose the Crucifixion because of something that was said to me recently of what was done by me in the old days.  The Crucifixion began at the Last Supper.  We won’t go into it much, but Jesus knew it was the beginning of the Crucifixion.  In his great consciousness he knew, and he shared it with the disciples.  They could not understand it well, for they were bewildered by the growing powers of darkness.

     This is the story of the conflict of light and darkness, the victory of darkness, and the conquest of light.  We too shall have a Last Supper.  It was the last Passover for Jesus.  There was the moving out from the little circle of Judea.  Jesus washes the feet of the Disciples, – something like our taking off the shoes (in the ritual of ascent.)  And the drama moves quickly to Gethsemane, where Jesus is bound by the soldiers.  He tries to prevent the rashness of his disciples, but they do not understand, and he can only stay it.  And the Crucifixion goes on.

     He is brought first before Annas and Caiaphas, who represent orthodoxy, the ways of the world, and then Pilate.  And then that chapter ends.  He says, in just a few words: I am not a king of earth; my kingdom is of another world.

     Then comes the subtler crucifixion, of the crown of thorns, and beatings; and those who may spit upon him.  But he says never a word.

     And now he is on the literal cross, – of wood, – the tree of life.  And it is the sixth hour.  For the way has been ever narrowing as it leads toward the gate.  And the powers of darkness bind the Light.  Jesus said: these things could never have been, were they not in the Pattern.

     The position of the feet on the Cross, one over the other, and fixed.  These are the ways of the Light — the Way of the Light.  The feet are fixed and cannot go anywhere – left and right foot, heart and mind, bound to the Way, – that narrow way of the Light, – and find its way straight up toward the Light.

     The old poem of John, the sensitive mind, to whom it was given to see the other side of the picture.  From below, it looked as if darkness had conquered, but it was not so, for the conquest is ever with the Light.  These patterns are; and what you think or feel about them does not alter them one bit.

     John went up the mountain of consciousness, and the voice of Jesus, without form, spoke to him and said: That is only my body below there, bleeding and torn, and my vitals divided into four among the soldiers – the canopic jars of Egypt — but it is not the cross of darkness.  It is the Cross of Light.  That divides all things.  All things are cross-beamed.

     John was beside himself in more ways than one.

(At end)  Share in this Crucifixion, with one another, by participating in it.

 

 

The Pattern of Jesus (continued)

MBM March 26, 1933

 

The Pattern of Jesus: from the feeding of the multitude to the raising of Lazarus.

We take up again the Pattern where we left it, with the feeding of the multitude with the five loaves and two fishes: the feeding of the multitude of the desires, and the completion.  And note the twelve baskets full that were left — the twelve containers, – the twelve houses, if you like, – the twelve stages of the Journey.

And the multitude wants him to be king.  The lower selves want that to be king which is giving them a surfeit, for they think then they will always have a surfeit.  But Jesus goes away again, quietly, to the mount.  The disciples go after him, and there is the storm on the sea.  You know what that is — the storm of the lower desires, and the winds raised by the thoughts.  Jesus comes toward them, walking on the sea.  He calms the storm, as the spirit mind does for the lower selves, through the leaders of the household.  Probably some of the twelve were like the crowd.

Instead of coming to the crowd as the king they sought, Jesus answers their desires with that remarkable sermon on bread, – the next day, that is, the beginning of the next octave.  And his teaching now is on a different level, as suits that new octave: the remarkable discourse on bread.

(The writer of this Gospel, John, the most finely sensitive of all to the inner meanings, and gives almost no attention to the outer story.)

And he says to those who seek him: “I am the bread of life.  Eat of my body and drink of my blood, or ye cannot enter into the Kingdom.”  And the multitude could not understand.  And there was the beginning of schism: Is not this the son of Joseph, and we know his father and mother?  The substance is mind substance, and the wine the energies of that substance.  And man must truly eat and drink of them if he would evolve the spirit nature.

Then Jesus called the disciples to him, and explained; for the leaders in the household must understand: “Does this offend you?  It is the spirit.that quickeneth, and the letter (the form) which is dead.”  Some did not understand, and followed him no more.  So began that bitter-sweet winnowing.

The Feast of Tabernacles.  His disciples bid him do in public the miracles he has been performing.  Even his family urges him.  “Egoist”, they say, “Do these things publicly.” But Jesus left them, for spirit-mind cannot stay with mockery.  He continues to work quietly.

The departure from Galilee.  The crowd has differing opinions about him.  Some say he is a good man; others, that he is a deceiver.  They ask: How can he be a learned man who never went to school.

Here comes the story of the woman taken in adultery; and it belongs here, as you will see in a moment.  The woman was to be stoned, and ran to Jesus for protection.  And he said:’ “Let him who is without sin among ye throw the first stone”, and graciously began writing in the sand.  And when he looked up no one was there.  And to the woman he said: “Go forth, and sin no more”, – meaning that all in earth are adulterers.  And that is in the Pattern, and none has anything on anyone else.  The sin is not in the experiences but in remaining in them when we are through with them.  And that is what is meant by his last words to the woman.

The raising of Lazarus.  Jesus was some days from Bethany and heard that Lazarus, of the household he loved well, was very sick, and then that he had died.  He goes to the house, and Martha goes out to greet him.  She says her brother has been in the tomb four days, and stinketh.  Jesus says: he sleeps.  He calls in a loud voice: “Lazarus, arise!”  Lazarus gets up, and Jesus says to those around him: “Free him of his burial clothes and the napkin aver his face.”  This is all a forerunner of his own resurrection.

Much of the Hebraic comes from the Egyptian, – here the mummy story.  Osiris is represented as a mummy in the fields of Aaru.  The Egyptian for Osiris is Asar.  And with the Aramaic La (the) we have Lazar.  Bethany is: Anu, plus Beth (house.)  You remember that Osiris was led up the allegorical ladder by Horus and his four sons — the perfected spirit-nature in earth, – which is what Jesus frees — Lazarus, also the light spark, as was Osiris, to the beginning of the higher evolution.

That is the work of spirit-mind in the latter stages of the earthly evolution.  It frees the nucleus of the soul, its counterpart, with the fruits of the evolution, and raises it from the dead; that is, from the lower elements, in which it has been buried, or rather, asleep.

Mary and Martha are the two mothers — the two pillars around the light spark, Nephthys and Isis.  It is not she (Isis) who goes out to meet Jesus, but she sitteth in the house, – she who had sat before at his feet.  In the Egyptian, Isis is sometimes called the Sitter, – the hatcher of the Divine Egg.  Martha does the work of the house.

Lazarus goes home, and feasts with Jesus.  As Osiris is freed from the chest, so Lazarus from the tomb.

How moving it is that these two great allegories should tell the same story.  Jesus etched it in the outer living, – etched the invisible story as the prelude to his own etching of the story in his own living and death.

(The four days, the completion of the four areas in man: earth, water, fire, air.  Not (or is it in) three days.

 

 

Egyptian Cosmogony

MBM   March 12, 1933

 

It is often said the Egyptians worshipped many gods,  Yet there is the great gamut of the religion, the cosmogony 1^hat could come only from balance — the recognition of the One and the many.

The great Hidden One was Amun (Amoun ), invisible, yet behind all, from whom came, the many.  He was back of the Nought, Nu, the first Great Mother, sometimes called Nu-nun (?)  But the great figures are both masculine and feminine. Amun, emerged, like the solar disk, is called Amen.  He pours out the germ into the great First Mother, Nu, who is also father of all worlds . These stages are all before manifestation.

Then comes Shu, Light, the outpouring of MIND.  He is represented with feathers on his head, indicating the perfect balance.  None of these are beings; purify your minds of any idea like that.  They are the great stages.

The syzygy of Shu is Tefnut — the second Great Mother, the Great Moisture.  But not cold moisture; instead very hot moisture, like the sun at midday.  She is represented carrying on her head the solar disk, and around it the serpent.  She is the first great Knower of the Serpent Force, the power of the Great Mind, the dynamic that runs through all the lower stages of light.

Another great figure is Kem.

Then comes the next Great Mother, Nut (Substance, Earth) and Seb, air, the space in which are hung the heavenly bodies.  Now we have the four elements; and it is not until their activities are well along that we have Ra, – although he has been behind them all the time.

Then Ra calls forth from Seb and Nut the five gods and goddesses: Osiris, Isis, Horus.   ?    ?      They are, yet they are also called forth by the one, – and there is no contradiction.

The light sparks have gone forth, but are not yet in our earth.  And then it is said Ra was displeased with them, and angry.  (There is a weak replica of this in the play Green Pastures, when Jehovah is angry.)

We have been drawing nearer our own universe and humanity.  This is not anger of the gods.  If they were angry they would not be gods.  If you are keen you will see that this represents a new stage beginning.

Ra withdraws on the back of Nut, who has become a great cow.  He is tired.  The cow (Hathor) becomes tired, and trembles.  And Ra calls upon Seb (or Geb) to hold her up.  The earlier stages recede.  We see something of that process reversed in the first lecture on the mystics, a week ago.  I spoke of three ages: the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Holy Spirit.  Here a stage withdraws from man, until such time as he shall be ripe enough to make his way toward it again.

Nut, Hathor, Isis — further stages of the Great Mother principle, coming nearer to man.

Seb upholding the cow.  Her legs become as four pillars, which, in the Cosmic, support the outer worlds – the great illuminating pillars of Wisdom.  Nut never comes down; she has higher responsibilities in the Cosmic.

There are many other types of life, and man must learn humility.  And can only do so through mind.  Hathor, too, remains in the Cosmic but looks down toward man.  Isis, too, is of the Cosmic, but accompanies man more closely, – stays closer to the descending light spark, and so suffers.  For soul suffers, – not that which is beyond, in the Cosmic.  Hathor feeds with the milk of spirit the evolving life.

Two other symbols that have stood for those things that are: Thoth and his syzygy, Maat — that perfect balance and rightness which is in all the process.  You will have difficulty finding anything about the birth of Thoth and Maat, for they are of the things that are, – old as eternity, yet young as the birth of a moment.  They stretch the great Cross.  And vitalize all things with the great power of the Serpent, – the Great Mind.  And their balanced perfectedness is stamped upon all the processes.

 

 

Jesus as Pattern Maker; John the Baptist;

the miracles; Nicodemus; water and wine;

three parts of Jesus ministry; Son of Man

MBM   February 26, 1933

 

I have been asked so many questions regarding Jesus as the Maker of the Pattern that I will speak of the allegory he wrote in living.  Taken from the Gospel of John — probably not John the Disciple, but the one who was most sensitive to the significant points in the life of Jesus; and everything else was left aside.  I omit the Proem, which was added later.

The writer begins with John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness, and who spoke of the coming of One greater than he, “one who shall baptize not with water, as I do, but with the spirit.

John is a preliminary stage, – the disciplinarian — the stage before the coming of that which obeys, and lives the law, because of the love of the law.

At a certain point John sees Jesus standing with others about him, and says: Behold the lamb of God, – and the disciples go to Jesus.  He becomes now the nucleus, about which the powers of the self revolve.  The higher mind, we call it here at Pojodag.  Soon there are twelve disciples, the mystic number of completion — the four elements in the three positions.

Immediately the writer begins with one of the miracles – the changing of the water into wine at the marriage at Cana: the second mention of water and wine.  (The baptism of water, represented by John, is the training and discipline we receive through pain — the many testings in the lower worlds, in earth-water.)

Next is the purification of the Temple.  When Jesus is asked why he has done this he says, apparently irrationally – really super-rationally: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up.”  The answers of the higher mind do not hook into the reasoning and attitudes of the outer, – increasingly so.  It was an anticipation of Golgotha.   The seed that was then to be ripe was already sprouting.

Then comes Nicodemus — and the third mention of water and wine.  Nicodemus represents earnest questioning, – in the night – that is, questioning of that which is still in darkness.  It takes a long time for the Nicodemus in us to take its place.

John decreases as Jesus increases.  And now Jesus departs into Samaria, and John is eliminated.  For the new center has now grown to full activity.

Mention of Jacob’s well, and the ninth hour.  Neither is accidental.  Jacob, too, had twelve sons — an earlier stage of Jesus.  Another well mentioned is that of the Samaritan woman; and the third, the well from which Jesus quenches thirst.  Again, water and wine, Jesus’ ministry was mainly in three parts: teaching, healing and feeding.

The healing of the nobleman’s sons, a healing at a distance; one for whom petition had been made.  Another type of healing: that of the man at the Pool of Bethesda, who had no one to speak for him, and could not move himself to go into the pool when the waters were stirred.  The mind must receive both kinds of appeal.

And now, the feeding of the five thousand.  The multitude had come without preparing themselves with food, lifted, for the moment, to greater heights by their expectation of what the being, Jesus, would do and say.  Jesus, knowing well what he would do, nevertheless asks the Disciples about the feeding of the multitude.  They tell him of the supply (?), which is the five loaves and two fishes.  Jesus divided the bread and gave it to the Disciples to distribute.  In the higher stages the nucleus recedes more and more.

Emphasis on the five.  Akin to the five senses and their manifold needs and experiences.  Bread, that which grows out of earth-water, the natural law, but with man’s work upon it.  There can be no completion of the evolution while the senses are still hungry.

The two fishes are truth and goodness — fishes out of the sea of life.  With the bread, they make the right alchemical mixture.

That is all, in this brief outline.  But reflect upon it until we come to the second half of the Pattern in the corresponding Sunday next month.  For Jesus makes not the whole Pattern, but the latter stages-of it, – the higher octaves, where the Son of Man becomes the Son of Deity.  And it is for those who are ready to change the water into wine, as at the marriage at Cana.

Just as the twelve days after Christmas form a cycle for the testing of the self, so do the forty days of Lent.

I sometimes think we see the picture of Jesus either too close or too far away.  In the Lenten Cycle bring it closer to the self; and then, quietly, put it away again; for man needs the poles – the near and the remote.

Fragments from closing:

When acts are replaced by Pattern, and Pattern becomes manifest in acts.

Turn to the One, with the light of our earth, water, air.  We are increasingly thankful for the radiations of the Light.

 

 

Babylonian Trinity

MBM   February 5, 1933

 

Purposively taking another tradition, for the Larger areas, to build the picture — which will be closely related to Egypt.

The Father, the Son and the Aeon.  The Father: the Source, the Will, working upon Power; the Mother, Wisdom, – not to be regarded as feminine.  None of these ultimates are to be regarded as masculine or feminine, nor as beings, nor as qualities.  They cannot be comprehended by our minds.  Power is with the Father, and Mind comes from Him.  Note those prepositions.  That hide and reveal, according to your capacity.

Wisdom, into whose womb is poured the Will of the Father.  And from her bosom radiate out rays toward all that is to be generated, – toward forms, toward matter, – but not ourmatter.  Her. hair radiates like flames.  That is the activity from Wisdom.  We can know these ultimates only through the activities that come from them.

But we can know the Aeon, which is the flower of the MIND, – not the flower of our minds.  But we know it through the flower of our minds.  The Aeon carries on the intention of the Father.  That is the Babylonian Trinity.  It has come to us through the Greek; that is, through several translations.  But even in spite of this you see its penetrating power, – and vitality.

The Trinity is Goodness, Wisdom and Deliverance – certainty; that is, the certainty of the mind that has much fruit from which to draw, yet seems to act with such speed.

The Aeon draws things in straight lines.  Among the straight lines are the seven Principles.  The seven are rays out from the Aeon.  We can see only aspects of that Mind.

And, with the Aeon, another of those ultimates, about which I have been unwilling to speak until you had much to bring to it – that is love — the great magnetic force binding all things together.  Think of it in two ways; and then we will be ready to go on with it some other time.  Think of it as in the attraction of the eye to the beautiful.  Or love toward a study, etc.  That is of the heart.  But love is chiefly a thing of the mind: that which gives things relationship.

 

 

The many levels of Jesus’ Teaching.

Parable of the unjust steward.

Make friends with Mammon

MBM   January 22, 1933

 

Every great leader in the world teaches on many levels.  A cause of confusion.  As soon as the teachings, or the acts are spoken – for acts also speak, they are subject to interpretation, according to the age of those who hear.  A parable which illustrates this is that of the unjust steward.  I have had some experience with that too, but happily have had opportunities, in banter and discussion, to get some things cleared up.

Sometimes Jesus spoke only for the immediate followers, the disciples, giving them specific instructions, which might often have been disastrous if applied generally; such as the instruction to give away your coat if you are asked for it.

He spoke to all kinds of people, from the few to the many: to those trained in the mysteries, to those trained in the law, to the crowd.  Sometimes, as in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with the beatitudes, to all: Blessed are the poor in spirit, which should read: Blessed are those who take on poverty that they may have spirit.  Jesus was a fisher of men, and this was bait for all who were ready for it.

Sometimes, in the same passage, there is the teaching for the crowd, appealing to the heart, and the teaching to the few, who knew the occult process.  As in the place where he says the crowd were like children chattering in the market place, who say now this and now that about John and about Jesus; but ends up with the few words: But wisdom is justified in her children; that is, those who know what they are doing, and are acting in wisdom, are justified.

Again, where he says to the Disciples: “Be ye approved money changers”.  That is, deal in the values of this world and learn how to multiply possessions; exchange bad for good, occultly.

The parable of the unjust steward, which has caused so much difficulty and is not used in the churches very much, relates to the rich owner, – spirit, and the steward, soul.  A few outer facts are: that in the East the owner of land left his property to a steward who paid him a fixed sum and kept what he acquired above that.  So spirit is the invisible, is rich, but is nevertheless dependent upon soul.

And at first it is the unawakened soul, who has ground down the tenants; that is, has spent all his energies on the things of earth.  For the soul is that which is between the rich owner and the actual tenants.  In this case we know only that the steward had ground down the tenants and the owner was dissatisfied.  But the steward swiftly becomes conscious, as one may do in crises, and passes from the leadership of the soul unawakened to the leadership of mind; and so makes a way for himself for habitation, for he cannot dig and is ashamed to beg.  These are occult terms too, but I will not stop for them.

He calls the debtors, and asks one how much he owes.  The answer is: one hundred measures of oil.  “Make out thy bill swiftly for fifty measures”, – that is, he will give only half the energy in that department.  To the one with wheat.

The owner is pleased.  It is a new steward who now manages.  And the last line seems to indicate Jesus favors making friends with Mammon.  The word means a cave where a rich treasure is hidden.  And he says: “The children of earth in their generation are wiser than the children of light who would reach the Light without doing the necessary work.”  They must make the right relationship, – friendship, with the things of earth, the training school, to find permanent habitation with the Larger.

(There were special reasons why MBM took up this parable at this time, right after there had been discussion in the Group of the Oxford Movement.)

On the setting together of four bones, Chapter 50

 

 

Book of the Coming Forth by Day.

MBM   January 8, 1933

 

Before we finish this cycle, – and now we are at the end of the “little year”, let us look into another tradition, on the setting up of the Tat.  This chapter should be entitled “On the setting up of the bones, so as to live instead of dying; that is, living the true life rather than the life which is death.

The chapter is illustrated by a black knife.  Gory, you may think; but the knife represents justice.  At the end of the chapter the reader acknowledges that he did not know what true justice was till then.

The setting up of the Tat has to do with ultimates.  You may have wondered sometimes about ultimates, and whether it was of immediate practical use to deal with them.  But every true journey is measured in two ways — one, those of earth and the other, those of the stars.  Each little act we do, if it is according to the law, adds to stature, which is not of earth.  It may be momentary, but it is timeless, and counts in the Great Year. Otherwise, it is not contributive.

The Chapter speaks of the bones of the neck and back.  Neck connects heart and head, – the values of the lower . . . . . .the higher psychic brought up.  The bones must be in right relationship, as the Tat must be, for the Light to shine through.  So with the bones that encase the spinal cord.

The Chapter speaks of setting up the bones “on the day when my hair was cut, and I lay helpless on the breast of my mother.”  Hair means power, and there is power on all planes.  The power of one state must be cut off, and the individual become as a babe before that of a greater can be entered.  Back to the mother – the motif that modern researchers have come upon.  We go to ever greater mothers, – till we come to the ultimate mother, and there the flame, – soul, is extinguished entirely, and gives way to a greater one.

In the Christian tradition it is said: Ye must become as little children to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Then read the second part of the Chapter, marked B, which says that the bones were knit together by the god Set and the goddess Nut, so that the bones may be set up as “they were in the beginning.”  The Chapter gives honor to one who is not always honored; and by this you can know that the writer had profounder knowledge, – to Set, the so-called evil forces that put Osiris in the casket and dismembered him, – the earth forces.  The power won through these, plus the power of the regions where blow the winds of heaven, must be united.

In the Christian tradition, the “sacred marriage.”  Set, the trampling out of the grapes before the wine is made.  The priests of heaven and of earth.  Then shall the bones be knit as they were “before the soul knew Maat and the gods manifested.”  That is, as in the primal state, before there was differentiation, and also growth.  Maat, the feminine counterpart of Thoth — the knowledge of good and evil, through whom man learns to measure things, and weigh them, and to choose.

The four bones appear in another tradition, later, but of the true stream – the Hermetic, as four men – ultimate men: Amon, the doer, the organizer, as the king is ruler; Asclepius, the student, – he who learns and teaches; Tat, the sensitive, the prophet-intuitive, who is the link between the others and Hermes, spirit.

These four are a goodly company.  Hermes is the highest, but the others are also necessary.

The four appear again in the Christian tradition, in Peter, James, John and Jesus: Peter, the organizer; James, the student; John, the Beloved Disciple, the one who was nearest Jesus, – the one who takes the place of Jesus as the son of Mary; for Jesus, here, is above the earth.

It is said these four taught the Twelve, who taught the Seventy, – who taught the world.  That is an allegory.  It is the seventy, who teach the household of the self.

At the close, after the “holding of the arc”, MBM made a plea on behalf of Sadie W. who was hovering on the borderland of body’s death, to keep her steady as the earth values shift, that she may benefit from other values.  And she said that in a way we are all gaining something of this with her.

 

 

Parts of the boat

Egyptian correspondent of John

Nut

Powers of Horus

 

MBM   December 11, 1932

 

(Largely Chapter 99 from Book of the Coming Forth by Day)

All great cycles have power of suction, as you are realizing more each year.

The high points of the great festivals.

John as the forerunner of Jesus — the one who made straight the ways for him – appears also in the Egyptian tradition, in this chapter, of which we are beginning to get some of the meaning.  John, who said: I am unworthy to untie the shoe latchet of Jesus – the lower man who, even at the John stage, knows not of the ways of the germ of that which is to become the Jesus consciousness; and of which Cosmic Man is the form side.  The two allegories are dissimilar, yet have many points of likeness.

The boat is the vehicle, or vehicles — subtle bodies.  And we must know the parts, in the building and living of them.  Jesus’ story speaks of it in the language of mysticism, through a different race body.

“What is my name?” says the sail.  Power of Nut is the answer — Nut, the heavenly space, – the winds, or powers, of heaven – the forces, or words, of heaven.  It is that in which the Cosmic forces move, and should be open to them.  “And how is it worked?”  The answer is: By hands and by the winds of Nut.

What is my name, says the paddle.  Answer: Fingers of Horus.  The boat cannot depend always on the heavenly forces.  For those who would go on the Journey there are many testings, when they must handle.the paddles.  It was through Horus that Osiris was raised to heaven.  And the powers of Horus, – the fingers of the ways of doing, are such qualities as righteousness, integrity, sweetness, steadiness.  “Through Horus is Osiris raised to Amenti.”  The paddles are moved by the man alone; the sails by both man and the forces of heaven.

“What is my name?”, ask the leather thongs.  Powers of the bull, who was burned by the fires of Set: fires of earth, that have destroyed the great bull, the mighty one.  And out of the lower man, destroyed, come the powers and strength of the thongs.  The Egyptians used leather thongs much to bind things together.

“What is my name?”, ask the planks.  The Four Sons of Horus is thy name.  The substance, the sons: earth, water, fire, air, – the fulfillment of the four natures.

“What is my name?”, says the hull.  Meret is thy name: Meret, one of the regions, – and an important one, from which the soul descends — something like Eden, and takes on the thick coats of skin; and with them great changes.  These few words can be amplified into a great metaphysic.  The hull, then, is the envelope.

“What is my name?”, says the bows.  Governor of the nome which is at the head, is thy name.  That which governs the boat and gives it direction; it is at the head of its ways of going — righteousness and integrity; and, in their ultimates, goodness and truth.  Always a pair.  Which pair, depends upon the stage.  It is in their service that the paddles are used too.

“What is my name?”, says the keel, the beam at the bottom of the boat, running from end to end.  Thigh of Isis is thy name, which Ra cut off with a knife.  Curious, till you get the content.  Isis is spirit, and it is spirit which binds together all parts of the boat, throughout the human evolution; and whether we see it or not.  Usually invisible.  The thigh is the power of going, the leg.  In the powers of spirit is the Journey made.  The light spark has been sent out from Ra.  The four natures — earth, water, fire, air, are not all, not the whole story.

“What is my name?”, says the sailor.  Eternal traveler is thy name.  The wayward (?) pilgrim; he who possesses the boat.  He should be a joyous sailor.  Sometimes called wanderer.

“What is my name?”, says the wind.  North wind is thy name.  The north wind was sacred to Osiris.  And the boat, and the going of it, are in the pattern of Osiris, as John is in the pattern of Jesus.

“What is my name?”, says the river, “if thou wouldst sail upon me.”  Those who are seen.  The pattern of the Nile, – of the sacred river, – of the path upon which the Journey is made.  The archetypal path.

“What is my name?”, says the land, “if thou wouldst walk upon me.”  Nose of heaven is thy name — the training ground, outpost, as it were, of heaven.  And those who complain of it should know it for what it is.

(later) You are beginning to build your bodies in consciousness, and have begun some of the parts.  See that you do it in integrity and that super-sweetness which is the foreground of love.  It will draw you on toward Home.

 

 

Egyptian tradition and language of alchemy

The two eyes of Horus

Vehicles through the Tat

Questions of the boat

Two lands

MBM   November 13, 1932

 

Uncovering a layer of the Egyptian wisdom, which was, in a sense, a special wisdom; and in doing so correlate it with the language of alchemy.  Changes in the form, as the life changes.

Chapter 99 of the Book of the Coming Forth by Day: When the Egyptians speak of the Nile it is the symbol of the heavenly stream.  The Tuat, the path of the involution-evolution.  Hapi, the river god: the symbol of the lotus and the papyrus at the base of his statues symbolizing Upper and Lower Egypt.

First, the traveler in the Tuat goes in a boat, but in the third or fourth parts of the Tuat he changes to a serpent; that is, he rides on the back of a serpent traveling on its belly.  A two-headed serpent, the heads representing the lower psychic and lower mental; through the desert, where there is no heavenly stream.

The chapter is entitled “On the taking of a boat with you through the-underworld.”  Boat, the generic name for bodies.  But the Egyptians saw the details as well as the whole.  The two eyes of Horus.

And then the traveler changes from the back of the serpent again to a boat; and you will suspect that this is the point of the beginning of conscious evolution.  Not a thing of time but of condition.  And he who would travel in the boat must be able to answer questions.

First, the boat asks him: Where are you going?  Toward what goal?  And the answer is: To the Lord of the Two Lands, who is in his shrine.  The Two Lands are those of the soul and of spirit, and he must find the place where they meet.

Then the parts of the boat ask him questions: What is my name? meaning what is my nature?  And you must know that nature by having done it.

The rudder asks him: What is my name?  And the answer is: Thy name is leg of Hapi.  Leg means power of the ways of going in earth — the experience that has been gained, and out of which comes the mind and its leadership.  For the rudder directs the boat.

And the oar asks: What is my name?  And the answer is: Thy name is pillar of Anpu, meaning steadiness, stability that has been gained — in its ultimate, the powers of the fixed signs.  Steadiness in handling the boat, even in storms, – and storms are part of the picture.  Steadiness of purpose and direction.  He who would go on this way needs steadiness.

And the rope asks: What is my name?  The answer: Thou art the hair of Anubis, with which he has completed my embalming.  Hair means power; embalming, purification, – that art which the Egyptians had — the powers of the mind, plus, but organized, woven into a rope; for powers must be organized.  Thus asks the rope, that holds the parts of the body together, and also makes it possible for the invisible guides to lead it.
(Later: Give praise through those strands of the rope which you have woven.)

And the mast asks: What is my name?  The mast is straight; and must be, to be of any use, – and tall.  And the answer is: That which seeks to bring back the Great Lady who has gone away.  The Great Lady is Isis.  She has gone away when soul is born.  Nephthys and Anubis serve her, devotedly.  She has left.  Nephthys, her sister, is mated with Osiris, and she is to be brought back.  The mast is the tall upright, that must be set, and points the way to the mind in its reach toward spirit.

And the next question: What is my name, asks the under-deck.  It is not an accident that the under-deck comes immediately after.  The answer is: Standard of Anpuat: the lower man must be properly built if he would set up his mast.  How many are there who try to set up the mast without looking to their lower deck.  And the lower deck cannot be in right proportion without the mast.

The upper post asks: What is my name?  And the answer is: Throat of Mesta.  Meatha is Aquarius, the man.  The throat is the channel from the heart to the head, and over it there is much traffic.  How hectic in the early days of the soul in earth!  But later, when there is maturity, the tones that issue from it are rich and full, and powerful, and the throat is prepared for the greater words still to come.  The upper post that has to do with the direction of the boat, the mind.

________________

Isis, the Great Mother who gives milk for her children; but they must be mature before they can make butter of it.

     See that you have taken some of the bread and wine in this Teaching.  Not only to know how these things are done, but to do them.

 

 

The Tat as the symbol of the Resurrection

and the way Home.

MBM   April 10, 1932

 

(This theme was given the last Sunday before MBM’s departure for England)

In an old land, the land of Egypt, they observed Resurrection, and the way Home, in a festival of ten days in the great temple in the city of Osret, on the bank of the river.  We will go through the great columns and pylons to the higher places in the temple, where the king-priest conducted the ritual of the setting up of the Tat, for the year — the Tat which had been previously thrown down.  Outer court upon outer court, – the last with high steps leading to the river.

The first Horus fought with Set, the powers of earth, and was defeated.  As Osiris, he was shut up in the casket.  But Osiris had a son, the second Horus, the Avenger.  Horus has four sons – powers developed out of his own masculine-feminine powers.  Horus is called the sacrifice.  He is at once the sacrifice and the altar, the way of the sacrifice.

The column part of the Tat is merely preliminary.  Then begins the part that is called “the measure of a man”, the measure of a fulfilled man.  See how it links up with the Pattern which Jesus lived before the eyes of man later!

The first part of the Tat is that of the bull.  The bull stands for stability, endurance — but that is not all of the bull.  The great qualities of the bull are obedience.  There are many indications of this sign in the life of Jesus: “I am about my Father’s business”; “Not my will but thine.”  Not obedience to the self but to that which is larger than the self.  Without obedience you can’t go far.

The word (Tat) means to hear.  Obedience, true obedience, means to hear and to do.  And as you hear and do, you will hear more.  Jesus’ ear was finely attuned; and to him hearing was immediately doing.  Strip off from the word the silly earthly clothing, the banal meanings.  Obedience to the Light!  It is a luscious word, pleasing to the gods.

He who obeys receives many questions and criticisms from the world.  Like the man with his arms outstretched, between praise and condemnation; but he keeps to his core.  He knows what he is about.  Don’t be niggardly.

And the second, the crossbar, the second measure, is the sign of the Lion – the true king of the true beasts.  Like the king who is devoted to his people.  He gives prodigally.  Not wastefully, but prodigally.  So did Jesus.  This king has already learned obedience, and now can give.

And the third sign: that of Aquarius, the Water-bearer.  The water from above.  Mind, the pivot between heaven and earth.  Until the process is complete the water is poured from above; later, after the Resurrection, it is gathered up.  Mind, which discriminates, knows when to take, and how to take; and also, how to keep silent.  Jesus gave brilliant answers to the Pharisees, the scribes and others; and also his knowing how to keep silent in the last days, after the journey from Jericho, when he was in the hands of the soldiers.  The sign may not be as clearly seen there, but it is there.  Aquarius rests on the Bull (obedience) and the Lion.

The fourth sign, that of the Eagle, the transformed scorpion: that which is the embryo in the bag of the waters of earth, and which becomes the Magi, with the keys to the Cosmic.

Have you wondered why the Tat has the outstretched arms, holding the golden, or the yellow, disk?  That is the way of the Resurrection, – the Way Home.  After that comes a still greater Mystery.

(Insert earlier)

Osiris-Horus, represented as a mummy, with one arm out of the bandage.  And it is said that on the shoulder of Horus rest all things.  The shoulder represents the Tat.  On it rest all things.  Through his four sons he resurrects Osiris.  His arm embraces Osiris.

 

 

The Pattern on many levels.

Real meaning of the Passover

Gethsemane, real meaning of

Pilate; Herod; Golgotha

Blood  and water.

MBM   Good Friday, March 25, 1932

 

The swift rhythms as the Pattern reaches its culmination, so that only the mind can see them.

Again we start with Jesus at Jericho, and walk the miles of dusty road.  The contrast of the opposites becomes greater, the highlights and the dark shadows.

The long battles with the scribes and the priests, the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  Jesus made the Pattern on many levels.  These represent factors on the outside and on the inside.  Then the Passover.  You might think there might be some respite then, but there was almost none.  The tragedies among the Disciples.

What the Passover really means: partaking of the life of the Higher, symbolized by the sacrificial lamb.  Jesus lived it.  The crowd ate the flesh of a lamb.

Then to the garden of Gethsemane.  It means the place where oil is made.  There Jesus made the oil; pressed it in an invisible press, which the Disciples could not see.  They stretched out in the sleep of earth as he had one of his last communications with those holy ones.

Then the betrayal of Judas.  It spread, – something like a mustard seed, among the Disciples; for Jesus boldly made the Pattern to the end.  And every death before the rebirth, – on every.plane, is made alone.  Judas represents the betrayal of that which is close; the soldiers, that which force obliges.  They are both within and without.  What Jesus bore in a single hour is more than the average pilgrim could bear in a year, or as much.

Swifter grows the rhythm; so that you would almost think, unless your ear is attuned, that it is a steady stream.  Jesus is brought before Pilate.  He represents the mind — that which almost sees.  Sometimes it gets a glimpse, and then it withdraws.

From there he is sent to Herod.  Herod represents the hard-hearted, clever factors.  Herod became governor at fifteen.  Herod sends him back to Pilate; but Pilate has given up the problem, and washes his hands of it, even though the psychic, via the dream of his wife, gave a warning.

Then, when force does not succeed, force multiplies, with jeers and mockery.  Then the journey to Golgotha.  Do not think it was not a real journey, – that the flesh did not bleed.  For, more often than not, the journey is made in flesh.  Golgotha means the place of a skull, where that which is of earth-water is emptied out — a skull.

Many crosses on the hill.  But it was on the one above the skull that Jesus stretched out — stretching, – following, making the Light that is above the skull.  His body is only on the cross as an outer sign of that which is necessary to attain that Light.

Do not think the flesh did not quiver.  Do not draw a foggy veil over the blood that flowed.  For only as that blood flowed, and the side was gashed, could there be that stream of blood and water which has nourished the ages since.  The living of Jesus is as food to those who can eat of it.  And unless you eat of the bread of this experience you cannot drink of the water, nor of the wine.

Ironically enough, there were the many types at his feet: The reasoning type, who think, “He has saved others; can’t he save himself?”  And those who mocked.  And those who wept, – who had been friends of Jesus.  Only a few of the Disciples dared to be there.

If you are to be of the friends who take his body to put into the tomb you must have loved Jesus.  Then you will lay the body carefully in the tomb, and do what is necessary these coming days.  But do not seek to know what went on behind the stone that sealed the tomb.  That is a sign of true humility, and growth — not to seek to know.  The great powers that penetrated that stone will work upon you the better for it.

(Insert earlier)  Jesus pressed out the oil with which he was anointed.

The swiftness of the master workman, who became the Lord.

 

 

Jesus riding the ass to Jerusalem

Symbolism of the ass.

MBM   March 12, 1932

 

There is not only the majesty of the onward march of the great pattern made by Jesus.  Many can see that, though with varying degrees of appreciation and understanding.  What few can see is the accuracy with which he carried out the mystical detail.  That can be understood only by those who know, – at least in understanding.  For these processes have not only grandeur but exquisite detail.

Upon Jesus there were many impacts, – those of the crowd, in varying degrees, and those of the few.  On that journey to Jerusalem, the last in earth, there were many impacts upon Jesus: the quarrel for power between two who were closest to him, John and James.  How that must have rasped Jesus!  He was weary and worn; but here we come to one of those places where the marvel of the detail is brought before us.

He called for an ass to ride upon.  Different versions give it differently.  One says that the ass was at the place where the vine grew; another, where two roads met.  The ass and the foal of the ass.

Have you ever heard the curious accusation that the Jews worshipped an ass-headed god?  The wise ones did.  The ass was a high symbol in Persia, India, Greece, and especially in Egypt, where the Jews learned the Wisdom-tradition.  Balaam and the ass.  Balaam was of the wise, but the ass was wiser.  In the Old Testament Zachariah speaks of one who shall come riding upon an ass.  A joyous passage:  “Rejoice, daughter of Jerusalem, for thy king shall come riding upon an ass.  Meek and humble,  yet strong and kingly.”  Zachariah saw mediumistically what was to come.

The ass comes from the time of an earlier mythos, the lunar mythos, and is a sign of the moon.  At that time, or before, were worked out the various animal types.  The ass never fails to salute the sun, as man does.  His braying, a sign, like the ape.  His long ears a sign of the means, – like a rope by which the return is made.  He bears burdens in earth — serving, patient, often beaten, – but never saying a word, except when he opens his mouth, as to Balaam, for those to hear who can.

And on his shaggy back he bears the sign of the Cross — the Light Bringer.  He is the one on whom the sun-god is to ride — spirit riding and mastering soul.  The kingly one.  Jesus on the ass, an aspect of the Trinity.

Some of you have been experiencing the potency of the Pattern, in various ways; and you will do so more and more as you are able to read these symbols – the language of the Larger, the Logoi.

In the ancient mythos, when Cancer was in the summer solstice, the sign, Ass, was said to be between the two roads — in and out, coming and going.

Ass was called euw, auw, etc.  Stood for all the seven vowels.  Some of these appear in the word Jew.

 

 

Tuat, continued

Egyptian tradition

MBM   February 14, 1932

 

I will review the latter houses of the Tuat, from the book (?) of the things that are in the underworld.

Through the principle of correspondence, there is much that relates to the outer pattern of the sun in the hours of darkness, but that does not give us the whole key.  The first hours are not so dark, for darkness comes gradually.  Later it becomes dark, and the stars come out with greater and greater brilliance, especially in a country like Egypt, with its clear atmosphere.  Then again, in the latter hours before dawn, there are rays and shafts of light before the sun actually comes above the horizon.

In the fifth house Ra in his boat, which is now drawn by seven gods and seven goddesses, comes into the beginning of the kingdom of Seket.  Seket is the one who is dead, and wrapped in many, many long wrappings of the mummy – the wrappings all according to law, the threads hundreds and hundreds of yards long, accurate in their folds, and wound according to law.  Ra is in the serpent boat.

In the sixth house is the abode of Seket.  Here there is no river, – only sand.  It is dark, but one star is visible.

In the seventh house Isis is at the bow of the boat, and utters words of power, that kill a serpent.  On a sand bank is a crocodile.  Ra speaks words which put him under a spell.  And as he does this Osiris lifts his head from under the belly of the crocodile, and looks upon Ra.  Ra is now in his old (or own), boat.  The river appears again.

In the eighth house the boat is drawn by nine gods.  Isis speaks sweet words and Ra, hearing them, chants, making a sound like the wings of bees.

In the ninth house the boat is paddled by twelve paddlers, who stand near the bow.  But their work is not so much to paddle as to sprinkle water upon those near Ra.  To the right are twelve gods (and goddesses?) and to the left, twelve uraei.  Ra stands now with a staff.  Here appears the great serpent Apep, and another great serpent.  These are to be cut (?).

The eleventh house is known as the house of the Great Fires.  Here the solar disk is at the bow of the boat.  Here the gods appear; and some with spears and some with knives, destroy the souls that are evil, casting them into the fiery abyss.  The Egyptians had no equivalent of purgatory, in the usual sense.  For them, there was destruction of the evil souls — no in between place.  They are cut off here, with the sacrificial knife – that which cannot go on with Ra – and their ashes help the growth of living things.

In the twelfth house Ra is greeted by those that await him.  Also in other houses.  Here there is at the head of the boat Khepri, the beetle.  Egyptologists think the Egyptians inconsistent: after having the sun, to greet the day, then to have the beetle.  But they do not know that the beetle signifies the Virgin Birth — that which is reborn of its own powers, won through the Tuat, or developed through the Tuat.

Those that go with Ra “come forth into Day.”  The Egyptologists think they go on back again, with Ra, into the underworld.  But if that were so, they could not be awaiting him here, – or at the other various stages.

Those that knew put their knowledge into the scriptures.  And lived what they knew.  Others did otherwise.

The great vice is ignorance, especially for those who are going toward the Light.  Not ignorance of facts, or of knowledge, but of understanding.  Use your understanding to grow wings that shall unfold in the power of the Light.

 

 

from the Apocalypse of Thomas

Clearing the channels

Son of the scribe

Jesus at the brook on the Sabbath day

truing the imagination

MBM   January 22, 1932

 

We return for the first time since the Christmas celebration to the Christian tradition: tradition meaning the garment in which the story is told, but the story is the same.  We will study the garment a little.

A story from the Apocrypha of Thomas.  Apocrypha has the same root as Apocalypse.  The latter has not become discredited, but the former has.  Apocrypha has come to mean spurious but it really means known only to the few, – not of interest to the general observer.

In this story, Jesus, at the age of five, was playing before the house of his mother, and after a rainfall gathered the water into pools.  He commanded it to be clear, and it became clear.  A boy passed by, the son of a scribe, with a branch in his hand, and threw down the walls of the pools.  Jesus said: Why dost thou do this?  The pools did not disturb thee.  Thou shalt be withered, even as the branch thou holdest.  The boy went on, and presently fell down and was killed.  The playmates raised a cry, and the father of the boy complained to Joseph, the head of the earthly household.  Joseph lamented: Our house shall fall into disrepute.

Jesus by this time had come out of Egypt: — “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” and had learned the wisdom, and was acting in service to it – the “I” principle in service to wisdom.  Working in earth-water, and has learned the lessons of earth.

The pools are channels, the walls the alembic.  Jesus did right to separate the things of earth from the clear water from above.  Else how could he have carried the Light through those octaves of twelve (or, this octave of twelve.)  This is your octave, after the birth of the sun consciousness — the octave about which so little is said in the Synoptic Gospels.

The son of the scribe is the practical mind, the intellectual self, which has no use for the work of the Jesus in you.  Jesus’ challenge to him is, first: These pools did not disturb you.  Then the comment that he shall die (or command that he shall die.)  That is the Jesus consciousness sending to the death, by command, the destructive tendencies of the lower mind.  And of course there is complaint by the playmates, who are sympatica with these trends and complain to.the head of the earthly household.  You have had this over and over again.  The Knowers of old knew.  (This was probably written in the fifth century A. D. and may have had no physical basis in fact.  But that is not important.  It had occult and mystical truth, which is more important.)  He spoke of the alchemical process, but not in terms of alchemy; rather, he dramatized it via persons.

Another story: Of Jesus at the brook on the Sabbath day, playing.  A Jew came, and complained to Joseph.  He stands for the race – that in the inheritance which clings to the old.  Joseph and the Jew go to the brook and see Jesus making birds of clay.  They upbraid him.  Jesus claps his hands and the birds fly into the air.  This time there is no comeback from the Jew.  They stand and marvel.

Here we see Jesus still at work in earth-water, continuing to carry the Light through the octave.  Making “mud pies”, but according to Pattern, – making the things of earth-water in the pattern of the Larger.  That is truing the imagination, – truing the faculties.  Jesus’ consciousness is not quelled by the race.  It goes on with its work – the twelve, – the lessons of the twelve.

The hands are the symbol of the doer.  Clapping them stirs into action the next element, air.  That is, the things so done have life in them; and there is power in him who does them.  They rise, and mount toward the Light.

The Synoptic Gospels tell us of this period of Jesus’ life only that he grew in favor with God and man.  The Apocrypha tells something of how this was done.  Only in this way can you win favor with God and man.

 

 

Egyptian scriptures condensed

The things that are in the Tuat – Ra

Spirit in the small

MBM   January 10, 1932

(From the Ascent;  Become empty of earth-water and air, or man’s, thoughts; till we come to the fringe of the Light Worlds.)

(In the Descent: Keep the Light with us always — even through water, where the feelings envelop the light and it becomes darkness.  Seek the Light with a new fervor — the fire, out of which grows the Light.  Show the light in you, and it will become life.)

This evening, and the following few second Sundays, I would take up with you the scriptures of Egypt in a new way – not taking specific sections and commenting on them but rather taking certain main themes and seeing what they mean.

The scriptures were ancient when history dawns.  The priests in some of the earlier dynasties began condensing them, for they are very complicated, and later, beginning in the eighteenth dynasty, and going on through the nineteenth, until even into the twenty-first, accomplished another – condensation in two books: one, the Book of the Two Pylons, and the other, the Things That Are in the Tuat.  I will take up a few of the things in the latter.

The Egyptologists have given us much for which we give them credit but we cannot expect them to have the key to the meanings.  Their job is to record.  But very frequently they offer theories of their own, and there they go astray.  So with the Tuat.  They thought the Egyptians had dramatized the Nile Valley and river in this way.  But to the Knowers the geography of Egypt, the Nile and the Valley, were merely the symbols of the greater Pattern — and the Pattern was first.

The Tuat: a narrow valley between two ranges of mountains.  On the one side are high mountains, very difficult of ascent, which separate the valley from the celestial worlds.  On the other side, the mountains separate it from the outer world of men.  Yet it is in the outer world, for those who can see it.

It is a valley watered by a mighty river.  It is the way forward for those who progress via the laws — the way hard to find, and not found by the crowd.  For it is not the journey made by the majority, but only by those who accomplish the tasks.

To the Egyptologist, it meant the journey of the sun, setting in the West, fighting with the powers of darkness and rising again triumphantly in the East; for he who accomplishes the Tuat is said to come forth by day.  That is true, in a way, but it is much more than that.  It is the journey of Ra.  But Ra is more than the symbol of Cosmic power.  The Great Spirit gives the sign of that journey in the heavens.

But it is also the journey of spirit in man — that in him which seeks the Light, and makes its way to the Light.  Not the light of man – such things as fame or beauty of the body, which becomes a magnet — that is darkness; (or gather a little of the earth’smetal.)

The Great Spirit, Ra, makes the Journey, and sets out with the ram’s horn and the solar disk.  For he never loses his consciousness.  Spirit, in the small, does lose it; or have it become clouded every once in a while, even when he is truly seeking the Light.  He sets out, then, with the ram’s horn — the power of Aries.  Reflect upon that.  A great sign.

And on the Journey he becomes Af-Ra, or Ra enfleshed, – in the thick coat of skin.  He makes the Journey in the Sektet boat. (The Journey by Day is in the Ap-tet boat.)  And the Journey has many divisions, or sections.  And, as we would expect, they are twelve.  The boat is the vehicle, or vehicles.

In the antechamber, to which he comes first, there is a fog, twilight, a mist.  He passes through, and is greeted by the apes, who are always there to welcome the spirit seeking the Light, – who welcome him on behalf of the great gods.

Boats go up and down the river — the boats of those making the Journey.  In the first Gate, as the sections are called, he meets thousands of souls who want to come on the boat with him.  But he takes on only a few, – those who have built up the heart and mind, the muscle of other boats, with which to make the Journey.

There are many on the boat with him, representatives of the powers of the realm from which he has come, but I will speak of only one, Anubis, the Opener of the Gates.  With his help, the gates open to the next chamber, which would otherwise be blocked.

In the second chamber he gives fields, that is, areas, or powers, to those who are making the Journey in the knowledge that it is in the pattern of the great gods.  They are given bread in earth; the flail with which to thresh the chaff from the wheat; to eat of that ancient Tree (of the knowledge of good and evil.)

And they see many things.  First, they see the gods wearing flowing hair: that is, those powers that radiate like hair, which are blown by the wind.  Great powers symbolized by hair.  That is a great sight.  And they see also him who tramples upon the eater of the ass.

I won’t speak of the ass tonight — a great symbol, that re-occurs so often, and which is not what man has made of it.  The ass is a friend of the sun.  He who has eaten the sun are the powers of darkness.  Therefore, he sees the subordination, or trampling up on the powers of darkness – another very great sight.

And to him is added bread, or all that he needs in earth.  And no wise man wishes more, but that which he needs for the Journey.  And he gets both what he needs for the Journey and what he needs in earth.

That is as far as I will take you tonight.

To him who seeks first the kingdom of Heaven — who seeks the Light, will be added everything else which he needs.

(from the closing).  Beloved Comrades, help those who are seeking the Light to build the bond, each to each, and each to all.  Building the fabric of the Gnosis.

 

 

Cycles

Winter solstice

birth of a god

virgin mother

MBM.  December 13, 1931

Everywhere great rhythms, cycle succeeding upon cycle.  The cycle of the day, a short one, 24 hours.  The true sun worshippers faced the East at dawn, the zenith at noon, and raised their arms in a gesture of farewell at night.  In Egypt (the sun) was called the “Eye of Khepera”, – the life and light and warmth of the earth.  It was the “Bark of Ra.”

But greater rhythms are behind this.  Everywhere the great Artificers contrived things symbolically.  And the great rhythms raise their mass and greater power against the smaller ones.  The rhythm of the year.  Travails each night in the birth of the sun, and it is greatest at the winter solstice.

But it is greater in the greater rhythm.  The greater rhythms include the lesser, as it were, but are obedient to powers beyond them.

Everywhere the great got, the Son of Man, is born at the winter solstice – the last of them Jesus.  The god is born, – or man, and becomes later the Son of Man.

The greater rhythm is due to the tilting of the earth’s axis; the lesser to the turning of the earth upon itself.  In the greater rhythms it turns about an unknown Pole — the greatest force in the heavens,  and it is no symbol (or has no symbol.)  The earth is still obedient to the sun, but responds to the pull of something else.

Man does not know yet that he too is turning about this Pole.  He should begin to tilt to it.  In the fabulous cylinders of Thoth there is the Great Cycle; and it takes mind to recognize it.  It is there, – and in a sense not there, as is the region of mind in man.

Everywhere the god is born of the Virgin Mother.  That is the soul become virgin, – using the things of earth, but with a wisdom above it.  Go through the travail in yourselves; keep the warmth; and it is your gesture toward the Virgin.

In the solar myths the star Sothis was worshipped as the Great Mother — the star which accompanies the sun from the east to the west.  And it was said that the Elder Horus was born between her thighs.  It is beyond the sun.

 

 

The Seven and the Twelve

also re “money changers”, joy

MBM   November 22, 1931

 

I am going to tell of certain mysteries of the Christian tradition in accordance with the season.  They will also aid many of you who are passing through certain changes, new realizations, so that there is among you a kind of passion.  It can’t be otherwise, but what is should not remain.  What I will say may seem like a sort of melee to you unless you see the thread connecting it.  It will repeat the seven and the twelve.

It is said in Luke that Jesus cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene.  He could not have cast them out of Mary, the mother, for she is a different stage.  Mary Magdalene represents becoming humanity – the whole gamut, from the lowest depths to the greatest heights.  The “seven” are the seven gifts, – powers.  You get them best in astrological symbolism, but I have spoken of them recently too — the Seven Lamps about the Unknown Throne, in their high aspect.  Here they are in their negative aspect — negative but very active.  They are thrust out by Jesus, and it is fitting that then Mary Magdalene anoint Jesus.  Jesus is the Christos, the perfected One, and now the anointed One.  The One who has become.

As the seven are cast out the Jesus in you becomes larger, the John smaller, – the beautiful balance and symmetry of the Pattern.

It is said that Jesus had twelve male disciples and seven women disciples.  The “twelve” represents the active powers, that go through progression.  The women represent the “seven” that aid — the female principle in the reproductive position: the seven in the positive, not the negative position.

In the Apocalypse of the New Testament (Thomas) it is said that Jesus taught the disciples for eleven years after his passing, and they thought they knew all.  But in the twelfth year he showed them that it was not so.  As in the Egyptian, in the passage through the Tuat back to Amenti, something of the same thing is said.  A vast new octave, new veils, a new stage.

In one of the mystery teachings of the Christian tradition it is said: “Be ye approved money changers under the law.”  That means discrimination.  Keep the good and reject the bad.  The early stages of that are choice between pleasure and pain, between the useful and the not useful — anticipatory stages, which are good as childhood is good, and adolescence and its learning process.  But now comes the end: discrimination between those values which are good and those which are not.  Values are powers — that which can be converted, like money, – dynamics.  Approved means certified, under the law — not just any money changers.

Joy: One of the great signs by which you may know one who is really moving is joy.  The twelve are not tasks, labors, but stages of progress, and he who is truly advancing has about him these invisible marks, – invisible, but they can be detected by the nous (?).  If you haven’t these signs you are not on the step where you think you are.

Joy is the radiant maiden who waits, the daughter of the kind, in the marriage described in one of the old hymns — radiant with youth, eternal youth, whose dress is of the flowers of spring.  Who is the king?  The Great Light?  No; that is supernal.  It is the light spark, and the radiance of the maiden is that of the sun.  Her radiance, it is said, penetrates everything; and she walks in majesty.  Just as the light of the sun plays upon everything, great and small, and penetrates it, and mingles of its nature with it.

The “maiden” is a ray from the Light nature, that helps, that smiles at, and shines upon and aids him who has progressed toward her.  That is the soul, – that is also spirit.  Truth shines upon her head, and plays about her head; and joy plays about her feet.  She eats at the king’s table, which is above, but feeds that which is below.

If you get into that position, the position of the priestess, who aids, who mediates, joy will play about your feet.  Her garment of flowers, of eternal youth, is like that in the Egyptian tradition: “Hil hall of eternal youth”, – ever a river, ever vivifying.

 

 

from Hermetic Tradition and Chapter 110 from

the Book of the Coming Forth

Contrast between the two traditions

MBM   November 8, 1931

 

Because you are beginning a new search for the meaning of the ancient texts, and your own relation to them, I will speak of two traditions from the Egyptian, and of the contrast between them.  Some of you have already worked on them.  If you get the sense of the contrast it will impact strongly upon you, and give you the first word of the sentence you are seeking.

The first is from the so-called Hermetic tradition, dating from the years just before and just after our era.  Who translated this particular fragment is unknown, and it does not matter particularly.  It is from “Hermes, the Trismegistus” Thrice Greatest Hermes, called so because of the Greek through whom it has come.

Hermes is talking with Amon of ancient Egypt.  Her tradition, the old tradition, had long been buried; but the memory, of which we have just spoken, is living, vibrant.

Amon says; Let us call in Asclepius; and Hermes says: Yes, and also Tat, but no more.  Amon is the doer in earth; Tat the sensitive, sometimes of perception, sometimes of intuition; Asclepius, the mind.  But all are one.  And it is spirit talking.

He says Egypt was set in the replica of heaven, and the great race of those who are to govern mankind descended there.  And he goes on to a prophecy: that the race shall be destroyed, but shall be gathered together again in a higher place.

The other tradition is from Chapter 110 of the “Book of the Dead.”  And now it is not a Teacher instructing as to what is to be done but the Doer himself speaking, directly: “‘I am’ is her builder in the Great Hall of Light, which is the mansion of the stars of his eternal youth.”  I Am is the light spark, spirit, – ever active, who never comes down, yet is behind action — the great masculine principle.  Of course he is “her builder”, – her being the soul.

He builds the soul in light, or the mind.  The stars, the points of light, of radiance, which are the fabric, the garment of the Eternal.  Therefore back again to the masculine.  (In the Litany: Praise to the One, from whom cometh Father, and to whom goeth Mother.)

Even if you get only that you will have understood something that will help you in that sentence.

Then another excerpt, bringing out more of this quality: “I steer her course through water, and win for her cities.”  Later: “I come to the Great City, great Garden of…………”

“I” is here no longer the light spark, but the active Doer in the self.  When you have learned to consolidate and organize memory, you win the “City.”

All birth comes through the water.  The “great City” beyond is the Holy Jerusalem, in the Jewish tradition, or the Divine City in the Egyptian.  Here the Doer comes more and more into the Light, into the Dawn.  He says he has learned also to guard the City against the “shining ones”, the lure of the psychic, – who shine but have no light.

He says too; “My tongue is like the fang in the mouth of Truth, above the Pillars of light”, that is, above all earthly things.  “I utter words of power.”  Yes, then is power attained.

The great cry of exultation in this chapter is matched in no other tradition.  He says, often in words that may sound strange to you, yet are not: “As a bull, girt with the blue of Heaven.”  Fill out the picture for yourselves as you read the chapter.  Develop that sense of values, – differences, which is the great sense organ of the mental body – intuition.

In the Litany, of the mind, Integrity, – that cleanness, that has something of the virginal in it.  Discrimination, which knows earth-water from fire-air in all things, – and, uses all four.  Control, that first flavor of mastery.  Knowing, that which sees beyond the horizon, where the sun comes and goes, – that wellbeing which can come only then.

When you know it you embrace it with the true joy of the lover.  I will describe it by a word which may sound strange to you, the word security.  Security of the mind in what you are doing.  (Mead, Vol II The Perfect Sermon, p. 307.)

“I saw the hawk come out of the head of the bull (spirit), and to me belonged all the Aeons.”

 

 

 

And so we come to the tomb, like the women, with ointment and spices.  These represent the longing, the yearning, the incense, embalming the beloved memory.

The women are the desire world, moving upward.  We must come, like them, even though we know the tomb is open.  You go through the ritual just the same; only each time you recapitulate more quickly, more strongly.  Not that Jesus needs your ointment and spices, but you need them.

The three days in the tomb, – the highly condensed symbol of the life before the Resurrection.

All life is striving toward the Resurrection; all the world travails toward that end.  The first day represents purgation (one of the aspects of healing); and includes also the training, discipline, concentration, meditation.  The second day, illumination.  The third, the Resurrection, the completion, when the Son is received in the house of the Father, and awaited by the princes of the palace.

What Jesus was you cannot know till you get there too.  What he did you will understand and experience more clearly as your heart and mind grow stronger.  His great glory, which we are celebrating, is his swift making visible of the Pattern — not in a thousand years but within the span of man’s short vision.  How quickly you will do it depends upon you.  The more your capacity for standing pain the more quickly you will do it. Indeed, the time you take is in indirect proportion to your capacity to stand pain.  Jesus suffered, and he did not suffer.  The three days in the tomb correspond to the chest of Osiris, which is in the dark, and sealed.

The opening of the tomb.  The two messengers from above who sat at the tomb are also part of the Pattern.  They represent the barriers removed.  When this stage is reached the barriers are removed — by others.

To him who knows, the suffering of the earth life, however great, is as nothing in comparison with the joy of the Risen One.

The preaching of Paul (Cor. I¹⁵, who said: “If Christ be not risen then all preaching is vain.”  St. Paul represents the mind.

Few can understand what is involved in the mystery of Jesus.

 

 

PRE-PENETRALIA THEMES

 

(according to notes of GB written immediately after hearing.  These discourses by MBM were given in 1931-34 to the Training Group.

Foods  January 10, 1931

Bread: The food of man, which he must cultivate by his own efforts.  He does not make the seed but he must give it the necessary care and tend the growing plant.  Then he must thresh it and separate the useful from the chaff.  It is the bread of experience, on which man grows.  Many kinds of bread, but it grows from below.  The result of what he makes.  Leavened bread.  (unleavened bread is unleavened by desire.)  Bread the food of adult man, not the babe.

Foods: February 8, 1931

Water  As necessary as bread.  Supplements bread.  Water is life; life comes through water; life is in water.  Wheat and corn grow from below, though the stuff of which they are made is not from below; but man cultivates them through the different stages.  Water is from the hand of God.  Food for the babe is milk, but for adult man bread and water.  In them are all foods.  Man does nothing to make water available, but he must seek it, and without it he dies.  Food for the subtle bodies, and many of ours are dying without it.

     Water, of three main types: rain from above; springs from below; the great bodies of water.  Also of two main types: salt and fresh.  Salt, a symbol of the earth.  Man does not drink salt water to slake his thirst.  Seeks the cool water of the springs for his body.  That is the best water for it.  So, on a higher plane, he must seek that which corresponds to the spring water.  He needs the water from above, from the heights, which is also from the depths, because everything of the cosmic patterns is in a circle.  The water from above and the water from the well.  Water on many levels, as in a fountain, but life-giving and fortifying on all levels.

     Great water gods in all religions: Oannes in the Babylonian; Buddha, over whom poured the stream of water from which he gives to others.  Osiris . . .. . . . . . Nile.  Jesus lost no opportunity to emphasize the need for water.  Used his own thirst to illustrate to the woman at the well the difference between gratification and satisfaction. . . . . .But you must thirst or you will not drink.  And you cannot make the circuit till you drink.  That is, you can’t establish the flow.  Like electricity that does not make a circuit.  But not with the water of the lower man.  You must walk dry shod upon this water.  Then the water from above becomes the water to the man who replaces the lower man.

     The incident at the pool of Bethesda, from the Gospel of John, which must also be read with great penetration.  The lame and the blind who came there were not seeking in body.  The five porches that opened on the pool; and there they waited (extensions of houses; higher sensitivities).  Near a sheep market.  See to it that you trade wisely in sheep.  These were wonderfully healing waters, and no one knew when they would stir.  When they stirred the seekers went into them to bathe.

     The crippled man who said to Jesus, when Jesus came to the pool: I cannot go down; I have no one to help me save the others, and when I get down the power is gone.  Jesus said: Arise, for Jesus is the living, healing water.

Foods: March 8, 1931

Wine  First a few words about milk — the food for babes, that comes from the mother’s breast even before the child is aware of the need.  Symbolic of the tender care of the child.  Symbolic of the good will of the Father.  But it is for babes, and is not what we are primarily interested in.

     Wine is mentioned almost at the beginning of the great symbolic Gospel of John. Evolving man makes and seeks bread; seeks water.  We have all done that, and have sought deeply to drink of water from the springs; but wine is the drink of another condition, and may be drunk only when man has mated with the spiritual.  The marriage at Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine.  That is the beginning of his ministry, playing the role he was to play, after he has been man.

     He compares himself in one place to a vine.  His Father is the husbandman, and his disciples, the grapes.  Grape gives so perfect an analogy that it almost seems to have been grown for this purpose.  The vine turns the chemicals of the earth into the plant that bears little scapulas — souls that are to fulfill themselves.  Full of water, and each type of grape having the flavor of the earth in which it is grown, – its little skin containing its substance — sealed, secret, sacred.  You would think the soul grows alone, and it does.  But if it merely differentiates from the crowd, through the narrow gate, and goes no further, it does so to no purpose.  The purpose of individuation is a new association afterwards.

     Then, when the grape has grown full, it is picked, torn from its fellows, and bruised (?) and stamped upon.  Then comes a mature substance of water, pulp, crushed seed, etc.  Then the process of gestation in the dark, in the cellar, in the vat.  Then the useless products are drained off, both from the top and by sinking to the bottom.  The rest ferments — a mysterious process, chemical change.  Painful to the grape.

     Who drinks the wine?  A Jesus, Bacchus, Osiris.  According to folklore, Osiris drank wine and taught the Egyptians to make it.  We know what that means.  He who makes the wine and ferments it is also he who drinks it, – and not till he has mated with the spiritual plane.  We may make gestures toward the mating but we haven’t done it yet. …Bacchus and the Satyrs who danced about him, especially Silenus, head of the Satyrs, who was said to be always drunk.  But most readers do not read understandingly and do not know that the Satyrs were sons of Hermes (higher mind).  Just as Osiris was taught by Thoth.

     Do not mistake the mere reflection of the wine in the psychic plane.  True wine intoxicates; this wine merely besets.  True wine, drunk truly, as Jesus drank it, is said to make one intoxicated, and beside himself.  Therefore dangerous, unless you are in the condition to drink it.  For it is the life of the spiritual plane.

 

 

The Gnostic Crucifixion

(Good Friday)

MBM   April 3, 1931

 

I will draw aside one more veil in the pattern of the Crucifixion.

Do not replace the experience of the physical suffering of (theme of) last year but add it to that which we already have.  For most of you have grown since last year.  But unless you have had the experience of the physical anguish this other side will mean little to you.  It is built upon the earth-water side, and suffering.

Three Crucifixions;  That of the One in manifestation.  Like the parent who gives part of his substance for his children; so it is the one for his becoming children.  Can’t be the same after that.  The pain of that Crucifixion will continue until each of his children knows his place on the cross.

The second, that of Jesus.  In the short span of his life he made complete the Pattern.  The most economic is the way of the Cress.  You will not do it so swiftly.  You are too soft hearted and soft minded.  To those who don’t know the Pattern at all it will take millions of years.

The third great crucifixion is that of each of us.  We must put our cosmos, in our microcosm, in its place.  It is very hard.  Yet the wonderful rightness of the position – the feet quiet, fixed on the way; the hands quiet, – outstretched on the arms; the head above the crossbeam.

That crossbeam is a place of great mystery.  It is from there that the angel spoke to Moses.  Always a voice; not form, as we know it.  For it is beyond form as we know it. From there comes the Light into the Darkness.  There is Son of Man; the separation of heaven and earth; the higher from the lower.

We should be moving up that crossbeam until it is in its rightful place; and should take the way of the Cross.  The most economic way.  Separate our higher and our lower, and put everything in its place.  Of course, it is hard — but only if you expect life to be all lightness and laughter.

See the life of Jesus, especially as you have it in the Gospel of John.  Do you find it all joy?  No, you find both great joy and great pain and sorrow.  Never forget the pattern of the man in earth, which he made.  So greatly compacted.  He speaks to the disciples of his sorrow and of theirs.  But when he is polarized in the higher he speaks of the great joy.

There is great pain and great joy in what we commemorate today.  Yet he never complains of the pain.  No word of that.  His pattern is so rich, so full, so condensed.  When the shadows of the Cross come into your life, through pain, disappointment, do you meet them as that which is helping you on the Way?  Or are you polarized in earth-water?

Do I seem to preach a gloomy preachment?  If so, you are polarized in earth-water. Without the dark the light cannot be known!

Just before the end Jesus said something about being glorified, and God being glorified in him.  It sounds almost like an invocation.  Probably it is not correct as we have it in the Bible.  The change of one letter in the Hebrew would change the sense to: How hast thou glorified me.”  And if he did complete the Pattern he most certainly did experience that inrush of power and murmured, in the body, words that those present either misunderstood or differed among themselves as to what he said.  Only in that position on the Cross – that Way of the Cross – can you penetrate into the Larger.

Jesus was crucified between two thieves, – signifying the body and the psychic.  The one repented, and to him Jesus said that he would rise.  This is the higher psychic, that rises with Man.  The body has no place in the process, and drops out of the picture.  His was a double crucifixion.

John, who had been with Jesus in the palace all of Thursday, and at the scene of the crucifixion till he could bear it no longer; who loved even the flesh of Jesus; he it was who, in the Acts of John, had the great realization of what was the true meaning of the Crucifixion.  From the mountain he looked down into the garden, and saw the Cross; and knew that the cross he had seen below was not the real Cross, but that this was the real Cross.  From where he stood it was shining and beautiful — the upper side of the Cross, – or the Cross from above.  And he knew that the other was only the apparent Cross.

And he laughed.  And to him came the great insight that: “God makes all things symbolic – the writing for man.”  Would you not give your life for that understanding — that true realization?  And John knew that it was good Jesus who came from the Good, – who was anointed; and so was Christos as well as Chrestos.

Jesus said: “I am a light to him who sees me.  I am a door to him who knocketh.  I am a mirror to him who understands me.  I am a way to him who is bound to the Way.  If you understand me show it by dancing my mystery.  I have shown my passion by dancing.”

The many who were crucified.  But only Jesus bore the brunt of making the Pattern.

(At end)  Praise to the One from whom came Jesus, the Pattern-Maker.  Jesus is a Light to the Gentiles and the glory to the Israelites.

 

 

 

Pool of Bethesda

May 10, 1931

 

This will probably be our last meeting of the season except for the Sunday closing the retreat.  I want to pull together several lessons from the Christian teachings, and clarify them.

In the Gospel of John, at the beginning of Jesus ministry, there is the turning of the water into wine at the marriage at Cana.  This is followed by the talk with Nicodemus, and then the dramatic incident of the cleansing of the temple with a whip made of rope.  The next chapter begins unobtrusively with the march to Jerusalem, the Holy City, the highest man can build.  Then the Pool of Bethesda.

There is a close relation between the cleansing of the Temple and the story of the virgins.  The 5 virgins are now become the 5 porches.

Outside the pool is a sheep market, where there is exchange of the values of the world (money for sheep).  Those who come to the pool are already evolved.  They have purchased sheep.  They wait until the waters are stirred by the angel and they wait, wait, wait. The one man spoken of waited 38 years.  It is not a superficial malady of which he would be cured, but a deep one.  They must have faith, a rational faith based upon knowing.  A faith so grounded into them that they are willing to wait like that until their hour comes.

What are the senses and what do we obtain from them?  Have you ever thought what is touch, sight, hearing?  Can you get more from touch than hard or soft, cold or heat?  Or from sight size, distance?  The five virgins who go in with the bridegroom do not have those senses.  For the extended senses there is needed heart and mind.  Only those get the overtones.  These build the porches, and the house is left behind.

Those cured by the stirring of the waters by the angel do so more quickly but the figure spoken of in the chapter waited for the coming of the Light!  You must be willing to pilgrim and pilgrim, long, long until your hour comes.  And then you will either have the Light as your guide, or be of the Light.  Do not mind if others are cured quicker.

 

 

Brooding Wings of Spirit

Story of Isis in Lower Egypt

MBM   May 24, 1931

 

This is the last meeting of the year for this group.  We will talk of Brooding Wings, the Brooding Wings of Spirit.

After the work of the year, and it has been a full year, we are making our harvest — the harvest is always a joyous time.  If the labor has been intensive, and devoted to the Light, there is the vintage, and it is a vintage which has its own peculiar taste, different from the vintage of any other year; and you will recognize it later as having its own particular flavor.

To make the harvest, it is necessary not only to work but to have the beneficent help of the season.  Then, with the harvest, comes a sense of wellbeing, and that is the spirit brooding above.  Wings that brood over the nestling, the becoming man.  Spirit knows its own, and seeks them, and watches over them.  Wings begin in the upper air, and go into the ethers and into the heavens beyond.  They have been the breath of life in the heavens.

Story of Isis, with the young Horus in Lower Egypt, after Osiris had been dismembered.  And there she heard the word of Thoth to take up her journey, leaving Horus behind; and she obeyed.  She called to her 7 scorpions, with which she was living, giving them the word of power and they all set out.  She came to a house where they closed the door in her face, giving her no hospitality because they were afraid of the scorpions.  Thereupon all of the scorpions put their poison on to the tail of one, and he slipped under the leaves of the door into the house, stung the son, and thereupon the house burst into flame.

In the meantime, Isis had taken shelter in a humble home nearby.  The mother in the burning home called to Isis in her pain and grief, and Isis heard, and through her word of power (Spirit) resuscitated the son.  So spirit heals those who have become dead — dead because of their absorption in material interests and feelings.  Isis was on a purposive journey.

There is a poignant story of how, while Isis was away, her own son Horus was also stung by the scorpion and died.  How she heard the gods discussing it and they told her to call on Amon-Ra.  She did, and with the help of Thoth, brought him back again.

We are now coming to the garden of the pool of rest, before we go on to the city of peace.  The city is built by man, fanned by the wings of air.  It is the result of our activity.  While we rest, we are preparing the ground for the new spring season.

If you get rumors of spirit, and think they are wonderful, how wonderful must be Spirit itself.

 

 

(End of the Retreat)

MBM   June 7, 1931

 

Valleys, Four Different Kinds of Mountains, The Four Cardinal Virtues, Summer Rhythm, A Summer Valley.

I will speak tonight of valleys.  They have always had a meaning analogous to mountains in the parables.  There the pasture is rich, particularly in the valleys below mountains.  Rich soil.  If you get the rhythm of the line, like the wave, you will understand the relation between the valley and the summer rhythm.

I am not speaking now of any value of valley, but of the values below the mountains — the higher valleys, rich pasture to raise sheep and cattle.  To make the sheep obedient, and the cattle to make milk.  Great treasures to be gathered in the valley, as the old prophet knew in the 23rd Psalm — “my cup is overflowing”.

Mountains have the meaning of higher consciousness, and there are four different kinds of mountains in the Scripture.  There is the mountain on which Jesus went when he prayed, as the text puts it — the mountain of communication.  That is the mountain of the myste, and is reaching to the Larger.

Then there is the mountain on which the Law was given.  Third, the mountain of transfiguration, where Jesus went up with the disciples, John, James and Peter.  The story in the New Testament is not as complete as in the Egyptian, where we have Amon, the doer, Asclepius, the servant, and Tat, the myste, and the soul to be transfigured, or the Eagle (Hermes).  You must have the four for that.  This is a higher mountain than that of the Law, for there the being who gives the Law is seen in the Light?  This is the mountain of Regeneration, the 2nd birth, the baptism in the Laws of the Larger.

Then there is the Mount of Olives, the mountain of the Resurrection.  In the Egyptian, it is here that the man is stretched out on the funeral bier, takes off the apron, and is wound about in the long, long linen cloth that leads to Amenti — up the mountain to Amenti.  The apron is the Masonic sign of work in this body, and it is made to geometrical measurements.  Now the work in this dimension is done.  (Ed. note. The mummy cloth, long, long winding and having no end, represents continuous life — here from the apron, work in this dimension to Amenti, the higher heavens, the long, long pilgrimage.)

In the year past, you have been climbing the little hills, of aspiration.  You have been gaining muscle.  As you gain muscle, you learn to climb the higher mountains, and if you don’t learn, the soul starves.  On these higher mountains are won the virtues, often referred to as flowers.

The four cardinal virtues spoken of by the philosophers are: temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude.  They must become as native to you, and then you will climb from one mountain of the Law to a yet higher one, knowing the wonder and beauty of it.  Until, far off, with its top out of sight, you see the Mountain of Transfiguration.  Beyond that, occasionally, the Mount of Olives, where ends the long road up the mountain to Amenti.

As you stay in the valley in the summer, keep in your eye the picture of the mountain.  Play your flute, and play the high clear notes, suitable to be heard in the heights.  If you do that, you will gather rich treasure.  It is a high valley, not a low one where the crowd is.

Those of you who have participated in this work before know that there are trees in another dimension.  So let us all set a time, in earth, so that on Sunday between 8 and 9» we will rest against the slopes of the mountain and play our flutes.

 

 

Egyptian Tradition Continued

October 11, 1931

 

(In the ascent) seek the Light in the fire. . . . bring the life to the Light.  Lift it up and be it.

Here MBM reads from the Book of the Dead, which is actually the Book of the Coming Forth By Day)

MBM has chosen it for our springtime because it deals with the larger aspects of the transliminal which we have been dealing with in the last few months.

The making of memory.  What is memory?  On your understanding of it will depend what substance you get out of what I am going to say.  But there are also other reasons, which your sensitivities will perhaps give you.

MBM begins with the Budge translation of the Book of the Dead that goes beyond it.  This tells of the great pilgrimage.  Not just a little journey.  The journey you are making, though you don’t realize it yet.  (Reads “May I remember my name in the Great House and in the House of Fire, in the night?”)  “The years and the number of the months are told ” (See Budge).  Name means many things — nature, of course, but also content, power to use, the knowledge of.  Three names the pilgrim must know: his own, the name of God, and the name of the Great City.

The Great House  There are many houses.  Means container.  The Great Container.  The pilgrim must be able to recall what he is here (and the things of the transliminal) and amalgamate it with the great memory which is restored to him in the Great House.  He must be able to bring it back in control, in potency, before it is his own.

This House has four doors, yet it is sealed.  “It is the house not built by hands.”  Is his name given him there?  No.  He attains there the measure of his power.  Can he retain it in the House of Fire?  The House of the Final Testing?  It is night, because it preceded the New Day.  A time of difficulty.  This is for the pilgrim well along in the Tuat on his way to Amenti.

I wish I could make you realize what it is you are undertaking.  Some of you have had glimpses of it.  Sometimes you have followed the way a bit.  It requires a steady heart, not a beating one — a heart with strength and valor for the things to be met, for the new exploration, and pushing forward, a heart willing to bear the burdens.  That which I am telling you is almost Ultimates.

The years and the months.  Year, of course, is a longer period; but more important, a year is controlled by the Sun; a month by the moon.  Year has to do with spirit, months by the soul.  Here it means with the powers of the spirit evolved through the soul. Brought from potentiality into potency.

“May I know the name forthwith of any god whatsoever I may meet?”  Gods mean forces, powers.  The pilgrim must know the things of the world in which he is – and know them forthwith.  That is why I have so strongly emphasized the ability to externalize what you know.  Some of you may have thought me stern — why do I bring in definitions on a Sunday?  Because it is relevant.  The powers we gain here of this type are gestures toward the things the pilgrim will need.  No sweet talk around a point, no evasion.  But a knowing of the name forthwith.  Sweet talk around does not belong to the Blue.

“I sit on the right hand of the Divine Seat toward the East” (see original).  The Divine is beyond the spiritual, beyond spirit.  On the East is toward the Homeland.  It is the homeland from whence the father-mother sent forth the pilgrim.

Now we are in our spring season.  The pressing forward into the memory is before us.  It requires a new flavor, steadiness.  A slow plodding is one of the sure ways of losing the Light.  Now that you see more of what is involved, you will be more ready to do what is implied.  It is so easy to become lost in the fogs of earth.  Few are they who can keep the vision clear in spite of these fogs.  Yet for it, all must be dared.  If you do not dare all, you have not glimpsed the Light, much less understood or lived it.  In daring all for it, you win a new freedom — in obedience to the Law.  Obedience, a rare word.

(From the closing prayer)  May the Light shine upon your way, and may you follow it.

 

 

Christmas Eve, 1931

MBM

(after the ascent).  We do not come all the way down, but halfway down the mountain, – in touch with two worlds, and between them.  Like the shepherds who watched their flocks.

The ethers are loaded with the reverberations of the Festival of the Light down the ages.  Epochs pass like centuries, centuries like hours in the regions of timelessness, which yet are the records.

Participate with greater fervor than you ever have before.  Dip into that great stream.  Let this be an experience with the ages.  It must have been a great festival to have lasted so throughout the ages.

     There is in that ether the visions of the mystic, the apocalypses of the saints, the Gnosis of the Knowers.  A drink from it is like no other drink — “Like is known to like alone.”  Cup your hands in that stream.  Till service to the Light becomes a feast.

In the epoch before Christianity the prototype of the Light was Horus — the Lordly One, – just as Jesus is the lordly one.  His foster father was Jo-Seph, as with Jesus it was Joseph.  His mother was Isis; with Jesus, Mary.  And there were those who saluted the child, as in the Christian tradition the Magi.

     These things are not accidental.  They are set down by those who know the Pattern.  And there is also the Star in the East.  The mother is Virgin – that is, the soul which has learned its lessons in earth.  Mary gave much sign of the true nature of that type, but the real virginity was in Jesus.  Born in a manger, or a crib, among the animals.  Shepherds are the double sign of sensitivity and of those who guard their own sheep.

     These hear the songs of the angels – the beings on other planes who knew the needs of earth and rejoice that the great Being was to come down and etch the Pattern.  For not all men can see what is written in the ethers.  It was the song of these, attending in their thousands that the shepherds heard.

Think of what is meant by that descent!  For spirit to become soul, – as it had to for a while, and then body.  What is implied of valor in this great adventure: the misunderstandings, the need to endure to the end, – great sorrow.  And beyond this, the still greater danger, – hazard, that he would not remember what he had forgotten — a terrible danger.  Jesus did not remember it till he had gained consciousness.  He had to win it.  Think of the helplessness of the babe’s body, so feeble, so limited.  Then the struggle between soul and body, – and the labor of the mind, – till it turns, humbly and radiantly, to the Light — till service to the Light becomes job, – a feast.

You make your first journey to the Light as the shepherds did — not literally in earth but in another way.  The little town of Bethlehem is easy to decipher in its symbolism.   … What the angels sang: Glory to God in the highest.  That first.  Glory is only our little word; we cannot know what it is really like.  But that glory is everywhere, and is come to earth.  “Peace on earth”, – not a quick peace but a slow peace, won by hard labor.  “Good will to men”: the Larger regions have good will to this little earth, – to the minds in it: Good willed to men.

     The compelling power of the Light to those who have known it.  The great tenacity of Jesus because of it.  Jesus had to remember his name.

 

 

The Treasury of the Earth

Penetralia

April 22, 1952

 

to find another kind of seeing which penetrates – the awakening of new perceptions, the interlinking of a thousand processes

growth means penetration – expanding into new areas

this is the true meaning of this room

The interplay of the Great Four – earth, water, fire, air – no one works alone

the bond between the earth and self – work and rest

check where ones labor is needed – the different administration of the elements – the miracle of transformation through this

the warming sun, water – all with its flowing winds

the 4 sacred elements – YOU – have you enough warmth, water

     winds – eternal  concepts

sometimes the transformation is tender and slow, sometimes explosive, radical – from flower to fruit

the mystery symbols of wheat, grain; wheat and barley – bread and wine that transforms to higher octave

The Key of Life – May 1951

Key in the Tau Cross with the oval above it

steps in the pattern of Jesus –

1. grew in stature
2. at 12 in the temple
3. linking his role with John – staying in key with custom
4. linking his kn from Above with that below

         both arms outstretched to humanity

5. teaching,  healing
6. prayer – two worlds linked in livingness in the self
7. sermon on the mount – more subtle
8. parables of the wedding and the vineyard

         return to Jerusalem

9. his wisdom and skill – one pointedness

         acting in

10. Gethsemene
11. Resurrection into the vault of H

         ours to gradually lift the Cross and

         the Resurrection and the ministry of Jesus to the

         Radiant Way of Life

 

 

At the founding of the School of Applied Philosophy

September 30, 1934

 

This is the hour for the laying of a corner stone.  It is different then other hours when we have met here.

     In this place we synchronize with the great rhythms – the universal rhythms, and it is fitting that we should synchronize also with the calendar of our own activities.

     We are laying the corner stone of a house invisible, yet visible, not made by hands.

     Into that dedication goes much that has gone before.  This is a symbolic decade.  What has been done here is of a type that may never be comprehended by the world; not even by those who have taken part.  A thousand thoughts – trial, experiment, correction – thousands of acts – stress and delight.  All of you have participated, though not in the same full measure.  Some laborers come into the work when the day is well advanced.  Yet all receive, strangely, the same hire.  You are all hired – – –

     We have come to a new stage – a new activity.  What has gone before is founded on a rock.  I call upon you to re-dedicate yourselves today – to say, with me, “I dedicate myself to the new school, which is of Pojodag, and shall be known to the world as Pojodag School.

     When we are close to times of stress we see them as dark – and we are entitled to see them so.  All work that is of the Light sooner or later meets these trials.  But we have kept the light burning; we have not fallen and we have not betrayed.

     A few days ago I came across some records, quite unanticipated, of the early days of Masonry.  There was then a fervor and earnestness, consonant with the times.  We need not compare it with Masonry today.  My eye lit upon a few paragraphs, unexpectedly, of the difficulties under which the order was founded.  To be a Mason was to be held in dishonor.  In its outer aspect the persecution made it impossible for a Mason to hold an official position or one of trust.  It takes much to bring about such oppression.  Then there was the opposition of the Church – and there was the Church in those days.  And the persecution extended even into the home when a member of a family who was a Mason was opposed by the others.

     The persecution lasted 17 years – a long time.  Yet it was a period of peace and happiness within the order – the harmony that comes with work that is of the good.

     After this period there was a flourishing of Masonry, of philosophic Masonry.  They had withstood the sustained persecution, and that gave them a vitality that can only come from such outer discipline.

     If Masonry could endure 17 years of this persecution, what can we endure?

     The journey through the passages of the Pyramid.  How in the first passages one must walk with bent back before one comes to the great gallery.  Here one walks with head erect and sees the symbol of the heavenly river above – the river of heaven above as was and is the Nile below.  For us too the dawn is coming – the breaking out into the gallery.  The new octave, not in accordance with any calendar, but in the time of…  In the meantime we should keep tryst with the symbolic decade

     What is a decade?  It is the 7 and the 3 and the 10.  The seven is of the Light and its radiations.  The three is that in man which learns the law and the heart that is eager in the doing, and the activity that is the result.

     You are completing your novitiate in the three and it makes you sons of the Great Source as you have never been before.

     Teaching is the holiest service man can perform.  Of course, there is teaching and teaching, and in so far as it is veridical we have no quarrel with it.  But our teaching is of eternal values.  It is the teaching of Minds to help souls climb up the Ladders of Life.  To be privileged to partake in that is a most precious thing

     You who have assisted me in this work I am directing will try different ways, perhaps not always better ways, to draw souls to the Light.  Our work is to lead up the Ladders of Life.  It requires a mating of mind and heart, of your determination and your eager desire.  Be big about small thing as well as large, and always keep the Goal in mind.  Be heartened, be sturdy . . .etc.

     After the period of learning comes that of doing, of activity.  And from this is born the son, the new stage, that could not have been without it.

     If there is such a thing as luck, or good fortune, then it is for you who are privileged to serve in teaching  For you the wheel of fate has turned to a zenith – a new high point under the sun.  I do not know what to call you, but you are called.  To hand on these things is to be of the highest service open to man in earth.  You know something of what such a life leads to.

      At a time of dedication we place in the corner stone symbols of the understanding we have won.  I shall speak of those symbols at another time.

     It is an hour for solemn thought, but partnered with joy.

     With this I close this hour of dedication.

     We ask those things that are needful – the things of heart and mind, of influence and power, and also the things of earth that are necessary.  We have stood the test and are worthy.